


Second Best

by KristinStone



Series: Living and Breathing in Flint [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: A/B/O, Alpha/Beta, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Arguing, Baby, Betrayal, Birth, Car Accidents, Christmas, Drama, Drama & Romance, F/M, Family, Fluff and Smut, Giving Birth, Happy Birthday, Happy Ending, Heartbreak, Insecurity, Kissing, Omega Verse, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pregnancy, Rating for later chapters, Romance, Scenting, Self Confidence Issues, Sisters, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, Snow, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unrequited Love, Unsafe Sex, Vaginal Sex, artist, it's complicated - Freeform, old teenage crush, painter, portrait painting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:00:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 43,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13246818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KristinStone/pseuds/KristinStone
Summary: Being the middle sister is hard, but it's even harder when one is the only Beta among Omegas. Laura has lived with the knowledge that she would only ever be an Alpha second choice for the last 29 years. But that doesn't stop her from dreaming about the what if's until one day she finds herself in a position she would've never thought possible: In the arms of an Alpha, but not just any. Daniel Blake is everything an Alpha should be, handsome and successful but things are not what they seem.(My forth book and I still suck at summaries. Sorry.)





	1. Uncollaring gift

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone new and everyone who has been following my literary journey over the last three amazing years now.
> 
> I will repeat here the same I did in front of my last book:  
> This universe !!!DOES NOT INCLUDE!!! female Alphas, male Omegas, mpreg or werewolves otherwise I would've tagged them above. If you are searching for any of those things and only want to read about these topics I am sorry to say that they are not present in my personal take on the ABO genre. I am sure you will find a lot of hot and steamy pieces you'll like better on ao3. Happy hunting.
> 
> This story, as apparent through the fact that it is part of my Living and Breathing in Flint-series, is part of my universe spinning around the American, non-existent metropolis Flint. You do not have to read the stories in the uploaded order to understand the world and/or the characters.
> 
> Should you be searching for something that gets down and dirty quickly, I will repeat here one of the tags to avoid impatient/annoyed comments later on: "SLOW BURN". Though it will not be as painfully slow as in the last one.
> 
> The rating, as already tagged, is for later purposes and a little indicated side event in chapter one.
> 
> Now for everyone who actually ready my notes this far, thanks you. I wish you a very good read and I am excited to find some of my previous readers among the kudos and comments again. And now: enjoy.

Laura checked her appearance one last time in the mirror before she decided it wouldn’t get better with what God had given her to begin with… and since she was already running late it couldn’t be helped anyway. Emma’s and Jason’s uncollaring would be in less than an hour and she still needed to get all the way to Saint Katherine’s with her huge present for the newly weds.

The last four weeks she had worked on the portrait of her little sister and her Alpha every free second she'd had next to her work as a art restaurator at the National Art Gallery here in Flint. Laura hoped that her beautiful Omega sister would be at least the slightest bit happy about her present since she had often complimented her on her artistic skills in the past, but with Emma only having eyes for Jason lately, it was hard to tell.

She still hoped Emma would like hers as much as their older sister Jenny had. Whenever Laura visited her and her family, their portrait hung in the hallway for everyone who entered to see.

Laura hurried down the corridor of her middle class apartment building with wobbly steps in her uncomfortable heels, which made her look like she was ten years old, trying out her mum’s high heels for the first time. Only that Laura was 29 years old, but sometimes still felt like she wasn’t old enough to play with the adults.

When she exited the building a light summer rain glided over Flint. Laura had fortunately wrapped the bubble wrap around the painting so well that neither the rain, nor the tight backseat of the cab she hailed could form a threat to it. Her years worth of experience working with valuable paintings had taught her how to make sure they arrived at their destination without a single scratch.

As soon as she arrived at the cathedral, she hid the painting in Jenny’s and her Alpha’s car until they would drive to the actual celebration site. Laura, being the only Beta of the three sisters, had never been the center of attention, so it wasn’t surprising her that the ceremony had already started without her. One quick glance at her watch told her though that she wasn’t late, but perfectly on time. She quickly hurried down the aisle and sat down next to Jenny in the first row. Jason glanced at her with an annoyed frown before turning back to the priest in front of him and Emma.

The ceremony was nice, just like the one Jenny had had thirteen years ago when she had been shy of eighteen just like Emma was today. The collar their little sister wore had belonged to their grandmother; Jenny had wore the same one at her uncollaring. Her dress hugged her slim figure perfectly and if she weren’t her sister, Laura would probably hate her for being so carelessly perfect all the time. But as things were, she was happy for her and applauded as Jason loosened the collar to softly press his lips over her neck scent gland. In less than a month her next heat was due and since all Emma could ever think of were a huge family of her own, Jenny and Laura were sure that she would let her Alpha claim her before then.

The ceremony was over after one last prayer and the guests moved out of the cathedral. When Laura stood, she saw him for the first time in years, Daniel. Of course, he would be here as well, she thought and forced herself to look at the marble flooring as she followed the newly weds down the aisle to the wide doors. Her heart immediately beat harder against her ribs, pumping hot blood into her cheeks. 29 and she was still a freaking teenager when it came to Daniel Blake: Alpha, best friend of Jason and his younger brother Chris, former schoolmate of Laura and unfortunately so far out of her league that she would never be anything but a mere face in his yearbook. Or maybe he remembered her from school as the girl he and his friends used to make fun of. Laura clenched her teeth as she walked more or less beside him out of the cathedral, replaying the names Jason used to yell after her when she had hurried down the school corridors on her way to art class or English. She shook her head that had been more than a decade ago and yet, she could still hear their laughter echoing from the walls.

When they were finally outside and the summer sun made Emma’s dress sparkle in all colors of the rainbow, Laura could finally take a deep breath and bring more distance between her and Daniel. Jenny, seven months pregnant with her third and fourth children, waddled after her over to their car, Harry keeping Alison and Bobby by the hands so that they wouldn’t run off. Thankfully, since they were both so young still, they could fit on the back bench together with Laura.

“Beautiful, wasn’t she?” Jenny asked after she had managed to slide into the passenger seat in front of Laura.

“Isn’t she always?”

“For some, definitely. But you’re not looking bad today either. I like the yellow bow on your hair, matches your purple dress.”

“It’s the same I wore at your uncollaring.”

“So?” Jenny had a way of always making sure that Laura knew that none opinion other than hers counted without sounding patronizing. “To me you are just as beautiful as Emma is today.”

“Nicely said,” Harry agreed with his mate and glanced over her shoulder at Laura with a warm smile. She envied Jenny for him. Always someone to talk to, share affection and intimate thoughts with, and, from she had seen since Allison’s birth seven years ago, the best father she knew. In a world the was dominated by romantic love stories with strong Alphas and loving Omegas, it was hard to believe that Betas could ever find such completeness when in movies and literature they were always just second best.

They arrived at the ballroom Jason had rented for today a couple minutes later. The caterer’s had already prepared the tables and buffet, and the guests only needed to sit down now to enjoy their lunch. Laura, conscious of her slightly more than curvy body, only settled on a light salad, feeling watched by all the well proportioned women around her and the bulky, strong Alphas who accompanied them. A few children ran around the tables to get rid of some of their never ending energy until they were drained enough to sit still and eat their meal.

After that it was time for the wedding presents. Laura went outside to retrieve the painting from the car and wanted to return when she suddenly heard a giggle behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at the source of the noise and found Daniel staring deeply into the eyes of one of those beauty queens Alphas usually surrounded themselves when they weren’t old enough to court an Omega yet. She watched as he traced the neckhole of her low cut, obnoxiously pink dress and whispered something in the air between them, causing her to giggle again. She knew that kind of noise. He hadn’t said anything funny, but something suggestive. Well, a wedding was the place to hook-up. Why should a young, virile Alpha not take the chance when it presented it to himself on a silver platter.

Laura shook her head and lifted the painting with its heavy frame out of the trunk without paying Daniel and his doll any more attention. She got into line of the gift givers and waited until almost everyone else had had their two minutes with the newly weds until it was finally her turn. Just as she started peeling off the tape from the corners, when she heard that giggle again. So they had moved inside again, great. Laura couldn’t wait to spent the rest of the day watching him flirt with this strange girl. What she would give to be in her stead… and if she could actually believe that he wasn’t just setting her up for another laugh from his guys.

Anyway, Laura thought and put on her smile. She lifted the painting from the bubble wrap and presented it her sister. Emma’s eyes lit up even before Laura could say a word to explain.

“Thank you so much, Laura!” she screamed and hugged her tightly while Jason took a closer look at them. Laura waited for him to say something about how it didn’t even look like them or how it was not their style and wouldn’t fit into their modern, sleek home. But she waited in vain. He thanked her tight lipped and carefully set it down next to the pile of previous presents behind them.

“It looks amazing.” Emma kissed her older sister’s cheek before turning to the next gift giver, Daniel. Laura glanced at him over her shoulder as she made her way back to Jenny and her kids. She caught him looking after her. As they made eye contact for only a second, he gave her one of his handsome smiles and Laura would’ve been ready to forget her past again, if he just kept on smiling at her.

No, she shook her head and plopped down on the chair next to Jenny, he was out of her league and she had sworn to herself not to let herself get caught up in wishes and what-if’s only to end up heartbroken again. He already had his entertainment sorted out for tonight and she would only make a fool of herself if she as much as smiled back at him.

“Your car keys,” she said as she handed them back to her oldest sister.

“I see not even Jason had something to moan about. You hit their mutual narcissism perfectly.” She clapped slowly with a wink.

“It’s the least I can do. After all, I don’t have a filthy rich Alpha who can spend thousands of dollars on a swarovski covered radio alarm clock. I have to diy my presents.”  
“The only thing is that when you finally find your prince charming, we won’t be able to return the gesture.”

Laura let out a huff. “Don’t worry. I don’t think, I’ll ever find someone who will spend the rest of his life with a mere Beta.”

“C’mon, Laura, don’t say that.” Jenny rested one hand on her huge belly while reaching out the other to slide a strand of her long brown hair behind Laura’s ear.

“Mom was a Beta too, don’t forget that.” Yes, but she also couldn’t forget how many times their mother had asked why she couldn’t be a bit more like Jenny before eventually dying from complications shortly after Emma’s birth. “And she even managed to tie down an Alpha.”

Jenny gave her a well meant smile, but as much as she loved her sister, she had no idea what it was like to be invisible. At times it wasn’t too bad, but more often it only reminded her that she was inferior just because of her genes.

The rest of the celebration was almost a carbon copy of Jenny’s. The bride’s bouquet was thrown into the screaming crowd of bridesmaids and single ladies while Laura only shook her head at them, and lord behold Daniel’s doll was the lucky winner, then began the dancing part. It was opened with the father daughter dance, only that it was Jason’s father who swayed with Emma over the dancefloor, since theirs hadn’t bothered coming here today. Not that anyone missed him since he had called them all the biggest mistake of his life, being shit drunk and ruining their last family Christmas two years ago. With Jenny and Emma having left for their boarding schools, Laura had been the only one witnessing first hand how much their mother’s death had destroyed him. Being mated was all fine and well, until something went wrong.

At the thought, Laura looked over to Emma who had changed dancing partners to Jason. She looked happy, oblivious of the fact that he had been one of the worst bullies of her high school days. It must’ve been true love.

Jealousy crept up her back and she excused herself out of the ballroom before the emotion could tint her faint Beta scent ever so slightly. Once outside on the parking lot, she took a few deep breaths and enjoyed the soothing summer evening wind caressing her skin, creating goosebumps on her arms and legs.

When she wanted to go back inside, she caught movement from the corner of her eyes. It took her a few seconds to figure out what it was. Obnoxiously pink fabric bunched up, long tan legs wrapped around rhythmically thrusting hips, muffled grunts and gasps. Daniel.

Laura forced herself to look away. Of course he would be successful tonight. Deep down still wishing it would be her.

 


	2. Painting Date

One month later:

 

Laura had had a terrible day this far. First her alarm clock hadn’t functioned, then he had forgotten her glasses at home, and eventually her boss had given her shit because a painting that hadn’t oxidised in the expected way. It wasn’t her fault that the ventilation in the drying room had decided to shut down in the middle of the night, but since she was the first one he had seen today (him being notoriously late for work), he had let out his anger on her. 

Now she was on her way home, enjoying the July evening sun before the forecasted thunderstorms this weekend would bring the damn humidity that was killing her every year. Just the thought made Laura break out in sweat.

She strolled down Bond Street, spotting the new summer fashion trends in the fancy boutiques’ shop windows, and found the none of the flimsy tops or dresses were worth her hard earned money… aside from the fact that none of those boutiques actually carried anything in her size anyway. Women like the one Daniel had exchanged body fluids with at Emma’s uncollaring were more likely to find something that fit them.

She was almost home when she suddenly heard someone call her name behind her.

“Laura! Laura Rafaelli! Hey.” Laura’s breath hitched as she noticed the voice and strong scent that came with it. She turned around with an uncertain smile as she faced Daniel and his charming smile.

“Hello. Haven’t seen you-”

“Since your sister’s wedding. No, uncollaring, sorry.” He laughed and buried his hands in the pockets of his tailored grey dress pants.

“Yeah… What do you want?” Laura asked bluntly and could have kicked herself for it, when she watched his brows furrow.

“Uhm, I… I was promoted in my Law firm and-”

“Congratulations,” she said in a low voice, wishing herself away. Laura hadn’t forgotten the high school bullying or the way he had made her feel after first inviting her to prom, only to show up with Jessica Blackwell instead.

“Thanks. I’m getting a new office and I-I would like to commission you for a painting. I saw the one you made for Jason and Emma.”

“I don’t have time for that.” With that Laura turned around and wanted to hurry away from him, but Daniel caught her by the arm. The unexpected skin contact made her gasp and he immediately let go of her again.

“I’ll pay whatever it costs to convince you. You’re a great artist, always were.” He sent her that smile again, that could’ve melted stone into a puddle and suddenly she got weak.

“Alright, but it won’t be done in an afternoon. You have to know that. The painting I made for them was based on a photo and I don’t like working like that. You’ll have to sit model for it, hours, and not just once.” Laura tried to talk him out of this idea to save herself from having to spend hours staring at the guy who broke her heart years ago without even knowing it while pretending she didn’t care.

“Deal.” 

Fuck. Just say no, Laura yelled at herself inside her head.

“I… I could make time for you this weekend. How does Saturday sound to you?” Was she actually agreeing to a date with Daniel Blake? Tall, broad shoulders, black hair, and the most piercing blue eyes-Daniel Blake? Said eyes lightened up when he heard her proposal, a happy smile soon followed. If he was playing this, he should’ve become an actor not a lawyer.

“Sounds great. When and where do you want me? Shall I pay ahead or bring any special clothing? Color wishes?”

She shook her head, ignoring his suggestively arched eyebrow at the last parts. To him it must’ve been all fun, but she was struggling not to hyperventilate.

“We will have to talk about the size of the painting and other technicalities in that meeting and if anything I will start with some sketches, but nothing nearly final. Like I said, this will take a while. Come at 1 p.m. My address is Olive-Hauser 4966, apartment 7B.”

“I’ll be there. Thanks, Laura.”

What has she done?

 

* * *

 

 

On Saturday, Laura cursed in a continuous string how she could have been so stupid to let her guard down and actually invite him, DANIEL, over. Here. Into her shitty little apartment stuffed with cheap IKEA furniture and socks… She didn’t even know how many socks she had before she had suddenly found them everywhere. Laura looked around in her kinda clean apartment when her little mantle piece clock next to her small tv announced one o’clock, and her heart dropped into her stomach. He would be here soon.

Laura hurried into her bathroom for a quick last check of her make up and simple half updo. She wore the same bright yellow ribbon in her hair she’d had tied into a bow for Emma’s uncollaring. It wasn’t like she didn’t have any other hair ties or hair accessories, but she found it created a nice contract with her dark brown hair. And it looked nice with the orange long sleeve shirt she wore today.

Her heart stopped when she heard the doorbell ring.

“Fuck,” Laura muttered, again cursing herself for agreeing to this. She stopped at the door buzzer next to her apartment door with her sweaty hands rubbing dry on the black jeans that clung tightly to her thick thighs. She let him enter the building and waited until she heard his steps come down the hallway before she actually opened the door.

“Daniel,” she greeted him with a careful, but polite smile and let him set his shiny black shoes over the threshold for the first time. He pretty much stood right in the middle of her kitchen-living room after only two strides with his long legs. His strong scent filled the small, confined space she called home. He was so out of place in her tiny little home in his custom tailored dark green suit with his crisp white shirt and matching slim tie; so put together while she hid bunny slippers underneath her couch throw cover.

“Your apartment is very…”

“Small, I know. But it has everything I need, even a small art studio in my spare bedroom,” Laura cut him off, hands again drenched in sweat as she hurried past him to show him to the room she just had been talking about.

“I was going to say cozy,” Daniel mumble as he followed her into the well-lit room, smelling of paints, mixing mediums, and fixatives she had used while working on the portrait for Emma. The sun shined in through the tall windows and it was almost a shame that she would have to scroll down the semi translucent shades to soften the light as soon as she began with the sketch to get the shadows right. Laura offered him a seat in the old green wingback chair with a short wave of her hand before she sat down opposite from him in her rattan peacock chair, the only extraordinary thing she had allowed herself in the last couple of years, since she was still paying off her art student’s loan. On the matching rattan side table she had already laid out her sketchbook, but first they still needed to talk about a few things.

“So, uhm… What dimensions should your portrait have?”

“Can you do it in 3D?” he asked with a smirk and blinked as a harsh ray of sunshine slowly crept up his face and right into his eyes.

“No. I meant the size of the canvas.” Laura stood and rolled down the shades to make him more comfortable. She sincerely hoped that the armchair had been free of any paint and he wouldn’t end up with a huge blodge of oil paint on the seat of his pants. She really didn’t want to take over his dry cleaning.

“Well, I liked the size of Emma’s and Jason’s. Maybe a bit bigger would fill the wall in my new office perfectly.” The slight rise of his pitch made it obvious how proud he was to have become partner so early. With only 34 years, he had managed what many had to work twenty or more years.

Laura sat back down and looked at the canvases she had leaning against the wall, all primed  and ready for the first underpainting of whatever she wanted to put on them. Usually Laura didn’t paint portraits this size, but since he would pay her, no reason why she shouldn’t go big.

“A painting that size will cost at least 2 grand, probably more depending on how many layers I’ll need and how much time it’ll take. Better prepare for 3 grand.”

His eyebrows shot up to his thick black hair. Daniel cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Does Jason know your prizing?”

“No, why should I tell him?”

“Maybe because he’s extremely superficial and would value your painting even more like that, knowing how valuable the piece is.”

“It’s not like you are any less superficial, if I remember correctly,” Laura grumbled and shook her head when she saw the confusion in his pale blue eyes. “Nevermind. Do you still want me to paint you?”

“Course. Never said it was too much, did I?” 

Oh yeah, look at me and my wealth, Laura thought and bit her tongue this time. Her heart was still hammering in her chest and with every breath she took filled with his deep, spicy scent it only reminded her that he was actually here.

“Is there a specific scene you would like me to portrait you in? In your office or at home? With a fireplace in the background and a brandy in your hand?”

Daniel chuckled at the image she painted with her words and leaned back again, crossing one long leg over the other and interlacing his finger relaxed over his stomach. Laura liked the way he sat right then and there. The effortless dominance in his gaze and the tiniest hint of a cheeky smile curving up his mouth were so ...him. The few times she had met him over the last years at school reunions and when he had been Jason’s wingman during Emma’s courting, he had always looked at her like that.

“Don’t move,” she whispered and searched the closet with all her paints and most valuable art supplies for her DSLR camera, Laura usually used for reference photos for work, and snapped a few pictures of him.

“I thought, you didn’t like working from photos, and who says I want this pose?” Daniel asked, glib as ever with that arched eyebrow, after she was done snapping pictures of him.

“I might use them to get a feel for your face.”

And his eyebrows returned to his hairline again. “That sounded not at all strange.”

“Well, if you don’t feel comfortable here, you can leave. I’m not forcing you to be here and since you were the one approaching me out of nowhere, you should have no problem leaving again.”

Daniel said nothing for an uncomfortably long time before wordlessly reaching into the inside pocket of his green suit jacket, pulling out a classic white fabric handkerchief. “Parlé.”

“I’m not a pirate.”

“Can you still tell me why you agreed on painting me if you don’t even like me?”

Laura was caught off guard by this question.

“Money,” she lied quickly, but it seemed to do the trick since he dropped the hand with the handkerchief in.

“Alright. Can you show me the pictures you just shot? Maybe the pose was already what I had in mind.” He had lost the playful tone in his voice, almost like he was disappointed by her answer. Laura pulled up the photos on the little screen of her camera and handed the heavy item to him, awaiting his judgement. Daniel reached back into his jacket and produced a pair of thinly rimmed glasses, only holding them over the screen and not bothering to put them on properly before nodding and handing the camera back to her.

“Looks good.” He stood and put the handkerchief and glasses back into his jacket. “That means you’ve got everything you need, right?”

“Uhm, no. I told you -”

“The photo method worked with Emma and Jason. So, why not also with me?”

“Because -” She wanted to spend more time with him before she would be alone again, no matter what had happened more than a decade ago in high school, and because her heart still skipped a beat when her name rolled off his tongue. “Because every artist will tell you that photos aren’t good for portrait painting. I couldn’t ask Emma and Jason for sitting model for me. Would’ve spoiled the surprise for them.”

Daniel thought about it for a moment before sitting down again, trying to recreate the way he had been sitting before.

“Then go ahead, Rafaelli. Draw me like one of your French girls.”   


Laura bit back a laugh when she imagined him buck naked and sprawled out on a sofa with nothing but a huge blue diamond around his neck. She reached for her sketchbook and the cheap mechanical pencil she kept clipped to it, since otherwise she would lose it in her tiny apartment just as quickly as her socks. She took a deep breath, slipping deeper into her armchair, and thus began the longest five hours or her life.


	3. Chicken Salad

An hour into sketching, the sun disappeared behind thick black clouds and forced darkness over the city. Angry thunder rolled through the sky, following the lightning that primarily hit the ocean outside of Flint’s borders.

“Don’t move,” Laura ordered and rolled the shades up again. The studio was still getting too dark to continue working on the sketch. The ceiling light wouldn’t create the same lighting situation as she had been sketching. So she needed to get the lightboxes out of the corner. All while Daniel still sat like a marble statue in the middle of her studio.

“You need any help?” he asked after he saw what she was setting up.

“No, don’t move.”

“I think, I can recreate this pose,” he chuckled and grabbed one of the two lightboxes Laura owned. Once the light was working, he sat back down again and nailed the same pose as before. Laura fiddled a bit with the right angle and sat back down to sketch him over and over again to make sure she got everything right. After another half an hour and three complete sketches, she wasn’t happy with, later, Laura did a separate attempt of his face and cracked up when he suddenly crossed his eyes.

“Lovely,” she giggled and forced herself to stay professional. He was only lightening the mood, he wasn’t flirting, only entertaining himself. Laura had to tell it herself over and over again before she got interrupted by him.

“You looked nice in your purple dress. Brought out your tattoo nicely,” Daniel said before the silence that had ruled between them the last hour could settle in again. Laura concentrated so hard on getting his not actually very straight nose finally right, that the words needed a few seconds to sink in.

“What?” She sat up straighter and looked at him wide eyed. She pulled down her long sleeve, covering the very colorful vintage floral tattoo on the inside of her left underarm.

“At the wed- uncollaring. Jesus, I will never get that right,” he mumbled the last part before continuing, “You wore a purple dress and the same hair bow if I’m not mistaken.”

Laura’s hands automatically travelled to the ribbon in her hair.

“Didn’t know you had eyes for anyone else but your ‘friend’.”

His brows drew together in confusion. So, he didn’t even remember Miss Pink-Dress. Not that it surprised Laura. He probably had another date tonight and tomorrow night as well.

“Oh, you mean Sarah,” Daniel suddenly called out and rolled his eyes at the memory of her. “The most shallow person I have met in a long time.”

Laura returned to her sketch and mumbled in a nonchalant tone, “You didn’t seem to mind about that on the parking lot.”

“Well, since you ignored me the whole night, I had to settle with someone else instead.”

“I didn’t ignore you! And even if I hadn’t, that doesn’t mean I-” She cut herself off. She was about to say that she wouldn’t have spread her legs as willingly as this barbie, but who was she kidding? If he had asked her to come outside with him, she would’ve trotted after him like a loyal dog. “Nevermind, and I didn’t ignore you. You were busy with everyone else.”

Daniel huffed a laugh and shook his head. “I vividly remember talking to you in the line of the gift givers while you only looked ahead and acted as if you didn’t hear me and when you looked back and I smiled, you treated me like nothing but air.”

What? He hadn’t talked to her, or had he? Laura remembered not smiling back at him, but other than that, no! She shook her head and wanted to ignore him as far as she could while drawing him, but Daniel was in the mood for talking.

“Why didn’t you bring your boyfriend to the uncollaring?”

“I did. He’s invisible just like me, didn’t you know that?” Laura snorted and lifted her eyes to him for a split second before getting back to sketching.

“Why are you saying that?”

“Listen, Daniel, you don’t have to be nice to me, okay? I already agreed on painting you.”

“And you think that’s the only reason why I would be nice to you?” The hurt in his voice almost made her laugh. It had been a stupid idea to paint him. Spending time with him would only make her angry because although he hadn’t been the worst of the bunch, he had also bullied her in school, and she STILL liked him enough to not hate him.

“I… I think I have all the sketches I need. Do you want me to incorporate anything other than you in the painting? Anything personal, that means a lot to you?”

“Like?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a fancy watch or certain pair of cufflinks?” 

Daniel looked to the side and shook his head. “No, there’s nothing.”

Laura was pretty sure he was lying, but wouldn’t press on. She handed him the sketches to let him approve of them while she picked out one of her biggest already primed canvases and placed it on her easel.

“Look great to me, Laura. I’m confident you will make this worth my money.” Instead of handing her the sketchbook back, he began flipping through it. Laura only noticed it when he whistled impressed. “You definitely have the skills.”

She quickly snatched her sketchbook from his hands again. He had flipped to her last Hans Holbein the Younger studies for a badly damaged painting the museum had purchased two months ago. Thank god not any further.

“Thank you. We’re done for today.” Laura’s heart hammered in her chest. Her sketchbook was part of her personal space, so having him flip through it felt like he had just read her diary. This was the place she could be stupid and draw men with huge noses or women looking more like ink blobs than actual people.

“What about the actual painting?” Daniel asked and stood, stretching his long limbs.

“I’ll probably start the underpainting tomorrow but during the week I will hardly have time to work on it.” Laura glanced at the empty canvas, knowing how much work she would still have to put into it before it would even remotely look like him.

“How about dinner then? I skipped lunch today and I’m starving. I know a place not far from here. Care to join me?”

“To dinner?” She arched her eyebrows suspiciously. One of the old fouls names he and his friends had called her echoed through her mind; princess piglet. Laura hated eating in public, and now she should stuff her face with food in front of him?

“No, to rob the Bank of America,” he laughed and buried his hands back in the pockets of his pants. “To prove I’m not just being nice to you because you paint me.”

Laura was hungry, there was no mistaking in that. Because she had spent the day cleaning her apartment, she hadn’t had time to eat either. Despite her better judgement, she agreed and tried not to let her imagination run wild when his eyes lit up again.

Thirty minutes later they sat in a little restaurant, well hidden from everyone who didn’t know about its existence in a backstreet behind an antique shop. Apart from them, there were only two other couples eating here, everyone completely sucked into their partner’s eyes.

“What would you like to drink?” Daniel asked, his shoulders relaxed and his charming smile back in place.

“Just plain water.”

“Watch out or you might get too fancy,” he joked but was only met with an arched eyebrow.

“It’s Saturday. Do you have to be somewhere tomorrow morning or is there another reason why you don’t drink?”

Laura had to keep her guard up around him and alcohol usually made her light headed. “I don’t like the taste of it.”

Just as much as she hadn’t believed him earlier about the personal token for the painting, he didn’t believe her explanation right now. But he let it slide and ordered drinks for them when the waiter came to hand out the menus. Laura didn’t even bother looking at the red meat meals and quickly settled on the chicken breast salad. She would just eat a frozen pizza when she was home again to actually sate herself.

“If I can recommend something to you, the lamb in herb sauce is delicious.”

“Thank you, but I’ll eat a salad.”

Daniel almost dropped his menu as he stared at her. “Really?”

He looked her up and down and Laura could almost hear him think that someone her size should be eating like a pig, not a bunny. She crossed her arm over her chest, involuntarily lifting her boobs higher under her top. But she stayed quiet instead of telling him that not everyone could look like  _ Sarah _ .

“The lamb is really good though.”

“The why don’t you get it?”

“Not a bad idea. I’ll even let you try a bite or two, just to see your jealous face,” he replied with a teasing snicker and closed the menu with a clap. The waiter returned with their drinks and took their food orders before leaving them alone again.

“So, uhm, you have no boyfriend?”

“No,” Laura replied and braced herself for some badly hidden interview only to use it against her in a way to humiliate her in front of his friends. “And either you are single too or you cheated on your partner with ‘the most shallow person-bla-bla’.”

“No, no girlfriend I could cheat on. But as an Alpha it’s pretty much in my DNA to be… active.” An interesting way of putting it, Laura thought and sipped her water as he continued, “But since I will be 35 in a little less than a year, I will finally settle down with an Omega by my side.”

He sounded so proud of it, as if being born with a certain set of genes qualified him as better as Beta males. It was the same with Omegas and Beta females. Laura sank down in her chair and forced herself to smile. It was what Alphas were meant to do, chase after the most fertile specimens of their breed. Betas like her were good enough for them to practice until they were wealthy enough to support the many extra wishes Omegas had in their day to day life. Nesting material, different birth control pills, more food than even Laura needed, and all the extra days off due to the Omega’s heats. And all that for a few days of primal fucking and the jealousy of other men who weren’t as fortunate as him.

“Have you already kept an eye open for an Omega? Maybe one of Emma’s schoolmates?”

“No, they have already been promised to others or auctioned off at school. I still have time to find my one and only,” he laughed, his cheeks getting a tinge pinker as he talked about his future mate.

As their dinner was served, they had found a new topic to talk about and it was art.

“So, what were those sketches in your book, the ones I wasn’t supposed to see?” He cut the meat on his plate in half and divided the duchesse potatoes evenly while Laura dug into her salad like a starving woman.

“Reference for a painting I worked on at the museum,” she replied between bites, “It was a Holbein and we had a few other works of him hanging in the Dutch galery so I literally drew some inspiration from them.”

“Does being a restaurator actually pay that much? Would being a freelance or portrait artist not get you more?”

“I’m happy being employed and not having to worry about my next paycheck.”

“So, security over money?”

“Always.”

Daniel nodded and moved his plate closer to hers before sliding half his dinner over. She watched him for a second and returned the favor so that both of them could enjoy a complete meal. After tasting the meat, she had to admit that he was right. The lamb was definitely delicious. Her brown eyes fell shut as she moaned lowly.

“Told you, you would love it.”

“And you were right. Sorry for doubting you.”

The rest of their dinner was filled with more talk about art and Laura got the feeling that he was genuinely interested in what she was saying. They shared the bill fifty-fifty. After all they had done the same with their food as well, so it was only fair, before Daniel offered to bring her home again. The streets glistened wet from the rain that had fallen the entire afternoon, until now only a few drops fell here and there.

When they arrived in front of Laura’s apartment building, Daniel stood with his hands in his pockets again, and bobbed on the heels of his shiny black leather shoes before smiling almost nervously.

“I’ll see you again tomorrow then?”

“What?” she asked, turning around after unlocking the door of her apartment building.

“For the painting.”

“But-”

“Shall we say same time as today?” he cut her off, swallowing thickly and smelling genuinely nervous all of the sudden. Laura looked at him for a long moment, fighting with herself to tell him she didn’t need him for the underpainting, but also admitting that she had enjoyed most of the time with him today.

“Let’s say 3 o’clock.”

Daniel let out a deep breath and nodded happily. “Alright, see you tomorrow then.”


	4. First Layer

On Sunday morning, Laura wasn’t sure if dinner with Daniel Blake had actually happened or not. But the second Daniel actually stood in front of her door, at 3 p.m. on the dot, she knew it hadn’t been a dream, no matter how weird it seemed. Luckily, she had still dressed nicely, at least to her standards, in a comfy long striped t-shirt and leggings. Nothing special but enough for a lazy Sunday.

And Daniel seemed to be in leisure mode as well since he was dressed in a white button down and dark blue slacks. Over his arm he carried a suit bag from a fancy gentlemen’s outfitter so Laura guessed that the rest of his suit ensemble for the underpainting was in there. It wasn’t like she really needed him for that since she had made so many sketches and photos yesterday that his presence wasn’t absolutely necessary. But it had sounded like he had wanted to come here today, the reason she could only speculate about. Maybe he was bored or… or he wanted to spend time with her?

“Hey, Laura,” he greeted her with that smile she adored so much and pulled her out of her thoughts like that.

“Hi, come in.” Laura smiled back and felt her heart beating harder again just because he was in the same room with her. She closed the door behind him and this time made up for the impoliteness from yesterday. “Would you like to drink something before we begin? You won’t have to sit like a marble statue today, so it will be a lot more relaxed.”   


“A glass of water please, and relaxed sounds great, though sitting around for a few hours hasn’t been too bad either. After all we had a nice conversation.”

“Yeah, among the bickering.” She wiped her hands dry on her leggings on her way to retrieve his water while feeling his eyes on her. 

“Thanks to the sketches yesterday, the underpainting shouldn’t take too long. That’ll have to dry properly before we can continue with more detailed layers,” she explained and heard him hum interestedly right behind her.

“So no, ‘don’t move’ today?”

Laura twirled around with an inaudible gasp and looked up into Daniel’s eyes. He stood so close to her that she could feel his breath on her cheek as she handed him the shaking glass.

“No, like I said, more relaxed,” she whispered in the constricted space between them. There was no reason for him to stand so close to her and look so deeply into her eyes, Laura thought but still filled her lungs to the brink with his spicy, masculine scent. 

“I like relaxed,” he whispered and stepped even closer until only a thin layer of air separated them from each other. With his 6’3’’ he had the perfect size for her. Laura would’ve only needed to angle her head up and slightly to the side to kiss him. Not that she wanted to… he was just here to get painted.

Laura swallowed audibly and stepped away from him. “Shall we start then?”

He looked a little disappointed that there was that distance between them again, but put on a polite smile nonetheless, following her into the studio again. The lights were still set up from yesterday and since it was only going to paint the underpainting, he didn’t need to dress up again. She mixed the earthy underpainting colours she would need to taint the background and eventually blocked in the rough shapes of his long head and wide shoulders. Once this layer was completely dry, she would add the right colors on top, but not today. It only took her two hours before she put down the brush and wiped her hands clean.

“Done,” she announced and smiled at him.

“Really?” He looked at her surprised and rolled his shoulders. “That was quick.”

“I told you this is the quickest step.” Laura looked at his image on the canvas and was satisfied that it actually already looked a bit like him.

Daniel stood up and sauntered over to her to check it out as well, but he seemed less satisfied than her. “Looks…”

“Don’t judge it now. It still needs at least two more layers. One with the correct colors and then details. After that it will look like your twin.”

“I have absolutely no doubt about that,” he whispered and leaned down closer to Laura, practically resting his head on her shoulder as he looked at the monochromatic underpainting. She found herself relaxing more easily with him around. Yesterday, physical contact would’ve given her a heart attack, now it made her tingle from head to toe.

“Wanna have an early dinner with me?” he asked, not lifting his head off her shoulder. His voice vibrated through her entire body. Laura’s hand curled into a tight fist and she bit her tongue to keep from letting out a soft moan.

“It’s only five p.m,” she let out instead and turned her head slightly to look at him.

“Then an afternoon version of brunch?” he suggested and turned his head slightly as well, his breath now gently caressing her cheek. “And how about you drop the salad for some real food this time?”

“Are you saying salad isn’t real food?” Laura asked, their noses almost touching now.

“I think, you think, that I think you have to eat salad -” Daniel’s eyes dropped down to her cleavage, undoubtedly liking what he saw. “- because you think all woman have to look like Sarah for example.”

Laura turned ahead again and dropped her shoulder to get him off of it before getting up. She knew that with size 16 she was not a model, but she also knew that people like him weren’t interested in digging through the fat to get to the “important bits”.

“The fact with thinking is that women who look like Sarah don’t need to do an awful lot of it, simply because they look the way they do and get what they want like that.”

“You know that body shaming works both ways, right?”

“I’m not body shaming her, I am brain shaming her and the men she attracts,” Laura snapped and collected her painting utensils to clean and then put them away into the cabinet next to the door.

“Does that include me?” he asked with a mixture of amusement and defensiveness.

“Well, you fucked her, didn’t you. Not that it’s any of my business.”   


“Yeah, you’re right. It’s none of your business.” The amusement was gone now.   


“I hope, you at least remembered to use a condom. Who knows what illnesses she might be carrying around between her spread legs.”   


“Okay, stop now, Laura. You are being unfair to me and her”, he said loudly, his voice dropping an octave and making him sound like her father when he was angry with her. “All I wanted to say is that you don’t have to restrict yourself when I invite you to dinner with me. I just want to spend time with you.”

“Why? You didn’t when we were in school, so-”   


“In high school?” He interrupted her, his eyebrows lifted in disbelief. “You always kept to yourself, Laura. You skipped two grades, were two years younger than everyone else, and usually ushered down the hallways if you weren’t sitting in the yard drawing by yourself.” Daniel took a deep breath and shook his head. “Listen, I don’t want to fight, just suggested ingesting food together. What is your answer?”

Laura crossed her arms over her chest and thought for a moment. “Sure.”

He huffed but didn’t say anything else. Instead, he packed his thick wallet into the back pocket of his dress pants and held out his hand invitingly. Half an hour later, they were sitting in another restaurant. This one was more of a café that also served food, and while Laura ordered a burger, Daniel was the one getting a salad this time.

“Why?” Laura asked after the young waitress had left them alone again.

“Because the salad here is so covered with king prawns and onion rings that it’s hardly any healthier than your burger.”

“I think that we should rather encourage each other to live and eat healthier and not compete who eats more fat,” Laura said and nibbled on the garlic bread the waitress had left together with their drinks.

“Life’s too short to force yourself to do or eat things you don’t like. Why not enjoy the time we have on this planet?”

“Deep thoughts,” she mumbled and propped her head up on her hand as they ignored the world around them. Daniel huffed a humorless laugh and met her gaze.

“Didn’t think I was capable of that since I was simple minded enough to be seduced by someone like Sarah?”

“No, I’m just surprised that a successful lawyer would say something as… pessimistic as that.” She suddenly had a bad feeling. Maybe he wasn’t as healthy as he appeared?

“What’s pessimistic about enjoying life?”

“Well, more the part about how life is too short. Are.. you okay?”

Daniel’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Yes, no, wait.” He let out a short laugh. “I’m not terminally ill or something. Don’t worry.”

Laura closed her eyes and let out a short huff, because she had actually worried about him. Her shoulders suddenly lost all the tenseness in them and her heart slowed its pounding against her ribs.

“Good to hear, in the end I don’t get paid,” she joked but the relief was clearly audible in her voice. Shortly after the food was served and this time they talked about his work, though Daniel didn’t seem to enjoy that only half as much as talking about hers.

“Why did you become a lawyer if you hate it so much?” Laura asked while digging into her burger.

“Because it pays a shitload of money and I will need that when I want to convince my future in-law’s that I’m a good catch for their daughter.”

Somehow Laura kept forgetting that he was just killing time until his 35th birthday, the magical number when he would be able to participate in an official auction at the Omega academies scattered all across the country. She shook her head to get rid of the thought. Now was important, she would worry about the future when it was time for that.

They ate and stayed at the café for another two beverages; she had black tea with lots of sugar while he drank iced tea, since he was always warm with his increased Alpha metabolism he needed every chance to cool in summer.

“So, the day is still young,” Daniel began, not looking up from his empty glass, “Do you have any plans for tonight?”

Laura almost choked on her last sip of her tea. “Uhm, no. Nothing on my schedule.”

“So, we could go back to your apartment and add another layer?” The way he said it, it sounded more like he wanted to lose some layers until she was down to her “underpainting”.

“Of course.” What the fuck?

As if that was all he needed, he hailed the waitress and paid for their dinner and drinks without even waiting for the change. The waitress almost dropped to her knees in gratitude over the 23 dollar tips. Daniel stood up quickly and held out his hand for Laura to take. He smiled at her brightly. They both knew she wouldn’t pick up a brush today and as much as she had envied Sarah after seeing her with him, now she was close to a heart attack. Hoping he wouldn’t pick up on the faint trace of utter nervousness in her weak Beta scent, she inconspicuously wiped her sweat covered palm dry on her pants before finally taking his hand. Daniel pulled her almost all of the short walking distance back to her apartment while Laura asked herself with every step if what was about to happen between them was a good idea or if her “teenage crushing” was clouding her judgement, letting her walk into ridicule with open eyes and a smile on her face. 

The second they were back inside her apartment, Laura’s hand was as sweaty as ever and her pulse beat almost painfully hard up into her neck. She hadn’t been intimate with a man for well over a year and that hadn’t ended well at all. After being called a frigid bitch for not wanting to swallow his cum, she had fled his apartment with half her clothes barely clinging to her.

The click of her apartment door behind her as it fell into the lock, made her wince. In a few seconds she would have an answer to the question she had asked herself for over a decade: What was it like to kiss Daniel Blake?

She waited for him to finally do it, but after he let go of her hand and excused himself into the bathroom, Laura wondered if she had misread him and he really just wanted to continue with the painting. She sat down on her couch and stared into the void, thinking and slowly descending back into the depths of her self-consciousness. Looking down to her thick thighs and soft belly, she shook her head at her own foolishness.

“He could have anyone, why would he waste his time with me?” she murmured and leaned back against the comfortable cushions with a deep sigh. Laura waited for him to finally return to ask him to leave. Spending the night with him was a ridiculous dreamery even if he didn’t just do it for a big laugh with his friends. She was worth more than that.

“Hey, are you alright?” she heard as her throat suddenly constricted around a lump. Daniel sat down next to her, smelling calm and emitting a comforting warmth.

“I… I think it would be better you leave now before I make a fool of myself,” she answered after a few moments of making sure her voice wouldn’t quiver when she’d eventually opened her mouth. Suddenly a puppy sat beside her. Daniel looked at her with big eyes before dropping his gaze to her tightly clenched fists and white knuckles. He didn’t say a word for an eternity before turning towards her and bringing his hands up to cradle her face. This softly forced her to look up into his eyes.

“If you really want me to leave, I will and I won’t ask you again, but if… if you think that I would treat you bad, I swear I won’t,” he whispered, his breath dancing over her face, while his thumbs stroked over her cheeks. Laura’s breathing hitched as he moved closer to her, his eyes switching between her full lips and dilated brown eyes, waiting for her to stop him before his lips finally met hers.

The kiss was soft, yet it burned Laura from the inside. Her hands reluctantly lifted off her lap and slowly snaked around his lean waist. He seemed to be made of muscle alone, at least that’s what she felt until he flinched away from her as her fingers grazed over his sides. Their lips lost contact when he suddenly laughed.

“Sorry, I’m ticklish,” he whispered against her lips, before continuing their kiss as if nothing had happened.

This was by far the cutest she had heard an Alpha whisper in her entire life, she thought and giggled before wrapping her arms completely around him, skipping his sides this time. Warmth spread through her whole body as his hands moved around her shoulders to pull her flush against his chest; their hearts beating fast together but separate by a thin layer of skin and bones. She moaned as Daniel’s fingers bunched up her long shirt at her back before tracing the waistband of her leggings.

Laura broke the innocent kiss when she needed to take a deep breath. Her red lips stretched into a wide grin, as Daniel rested his forehead against hers. 

“So, do you still want me to leave, Laura?” he asked, mirroring her smile as he gazed deeply into her warm eyes. Her veins were flooding with endorphin. She quickly shook her head and stood up, taking his hand and pulling him behind her into her bedroom. Though she could still hardly believe she was going to spend the night with Daniel.


	5. Lights Off

Laura pulled Daniel into her bedroom, having forgotten that she had thrown everything that had been laying around in her living room into here yesterday, never intending him to see what a messy person she actually was.

“Lovely,” he laughed when she suddenly stopped in her tracks with him almost running into her.

“Sorry, wasn’t planning on letting anyone in here.”

“Thankfully, I’m not anyone,” he snickered and dipped his head into the crook of her neck and sucked on her underdeveloped scent gland. The room, usually drenched in her personal odor was now conquered by his much stronger Alpha scent, his evident arousal heavily weaving into it. His hands moved under her long shirt until they rested on her wide hips, grinding his hardening cock against her soft, round butt from behind.

As his fingers began to inch down the waistband of her leggings, she suddenly flinched away from him and took a few steps back. She would be naked… in front of him. No part of her body would be obscured from his eyes, open for his judgement.

“What is it, Laura?” Daniel asked concerned before carefully closing the distance between them again.

“Can we turn off the light please?”

“What? Why?” He rested his hands back on her hips; they seemed to be the perfect spot for them in his mind.

Laura’s cheeks felt like they were burning. She avoided his eyes as she replied in a low voice, “I don’t want you to...”

“To see you? Laura, c’mon, that’s ridiculous.” He knew instantly that he had messed up when she brushed his hands off and walked back into the direction of the living room and subsequently the apartment door to send him away again, but he caught her arm before she had even left the bedroom. “Sorry. We can turn off the lights. No problem. In fact, I have nothing against using my hands to see you.”

Daniel wiggled his eyebrows at her and let out a relieved sigh when she pressed her lips back onto his. While wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders, he felt for the light switch at the wall and turned the ceiling lamp off, leaving only the sunset red to illuminate the small bedroom. Laura felt safer in the darkness. Like this her orange skin and stretch marks were invisible and she could enjoy his touch a hundred times more.

And Daniel knew how to touch her to make her panties wet. He sucked on the spot right below her left ear, making her moan his name like a wanton whore within seconds. She allowed him to slip his hands into her pants, cupping her ass without thinking twice. In fact, Laura wasn’t thinking at all. Her mind was wiped clean of any thoughts or concerns. She lifted her arms to aid him when he pulled the shirt over her head. Her breath hitched when he latched onto the top of her bosom that spilled over her black lace bra. Thank god she hadn’t picked her comfortable cotton wireless bra today, she thought in the back of her head before his deep moan against her skin rendered her thoughtless again. The room was filled with the sounds of his wet kissing, and her heavy breaths and moans as her eyes fell shut, enjoying his attention thoroughly.

He guided her backwards over to her bed and softly pushed her down. Laura lay back and watched his silhouette hover over her, his warm hands getting back to work on her tight fitting leggings.

“Let’s finally get these off,” he whispered, his voice dripping with desire. Within a minute she was naked with her legs already slightly parted as a silent invitation for him. When Daniel shed his clothes, Laura regretted not having better lighting to see his body in full detail. The way it was now, she could only make out the rough shaped of his chest and hips. But what she could see clearly was his hard cock staring straight at her with its glistening head, desperate for attention. Daniel crawled over her, kissing his way up from her navel, between the valley of her breasts, over her scent gland, back up to her parted lips. Laura weaved her hands through his dark hair and let them glide over his hard back muscles as their tongues sensually danced with each other.

Her head was swimming, her nerves vibrating, picking up on every little sound he made. She opened her legs wider and he almost immediately slipped between them. Daniel propped himself up on his elbows and kissed down her body again. His lips passed her hammering heart when he turned his attention to her tight, erect nipples, circling his wet tongue around them until he eventually closed his lips around first one then the other, giving each breast a hard suck that stole her breath away.

“Daniel”, she sighed and arched her back, wrapping her thick legs around his middle. He hummed against her heated skin and lifted his dilated eyes to her flushed face. A smile tugged on his lips as he moved further down until he circled his arms around her upper thighs, laying them over his shoulders. He shot her a wicked grin before blowing gently onto her hard little clit.

Laura’s head fell back against her pillows and gasped as his tongue licked tentatively along her slit. She was dripping wet already from the attention her breasts had enjoyed, but having him between her legs was pushing her senses into overdrive. He hardly needed to touch her. Laura sucked in a deep breath as she felt her orgasm approach with giant steps. Daniel closed his lips around her clit, flicking the tip of his tongue over the little bundle of nerves, moaning and sending the vibrations through her entire body.

“I’m coming,” Laura whispered in a breathy voice, just in time before her climax washed over her. Mouth falling open in a silent scream, she felt her thighs over his shoulders quiver and her toes curl up until her muscles hurt. She saw stars flicker up behind her closed eyelids; fireworks exploded in her belly. Then her body suddenly lost all its tension, only her lungs and heart worked to keep her alive it seemed. Laura heard him chuckle as if through a thick blanket that covered her ears. She panted hard and fought even harder to open her eyes again, only to find that Daniel wasn’t between her legs anymore, but lay beside her, idly tracing a circular pattern between her breasts.

“Never thought I would see you lose control so deliciously,” he purred and leaned over to kiss her. Laura tasted herself on his lips and smiled into the tender contact. Daniel wrapped his arms around her and covered her body with his. Within a few seconds he was positioned back between her legs, this time grinding the precum drooling tip of his hot hard on against her wet pussy. He buried one of his hands in her hair at the nape of her neck while the other ghosted over her sensitive nipples, circling them with the pad of his middle finger before dipping lower, parting her nether lips and directing his cock to her dripping entrance.

That was the moment she had dreamed about for years. Laura forced herself to stay attentive and let every moment of it etch into her memory. But instead of finally filling her, Daniel stopped and lifted his head to look deep into her eyes. Oh no, a cold shower let her sober up immediately. Would he leave her again? Why? Had she done something wrong? Had he expected her to return head?

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his eyebrows, glistening wet from sweat, knitted together in concern.

“Nothing, why?”

“You stopped kissing me and tensed up all of the sudden. Thought you’d gotten cold feet,” he whispered in the small space between them. Laura’s eyes grew wide.

“No, no. I want this. I want you.” She managed a smile he didn’t seem to buy.

“This isn’t your first time, right? It would be completely okay, I’m not judging. But-”

“I lost my virginity at art school when I was twenty years old,” she told him with hot red cheeks. He didn’t need to know that it had been her professor. And Laura didn’t particularly enjoy remembering the fateful afternoon. Quick and dirty was already a compliment for what had happened in that office of his.

“Oh, okay.” And with that he dipped his head into the crook of her neck and sucked on her scent gland again. “You smell amazing.”

Laura shuddered at the vibrations from his voice travelled through her body and the tip of his cock finally entered her.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he moaned against her skin.

“Haven’t had sex in a year,” Laura confessed and turned her head to the side to bear more of her neck for him to suck.

His hips thrust forward a bit at a time, slowly feeding her his full length until he was eventually sheathed completely inside her tightness. They groaned in unison when he bottomed up and rested his complete weight on her for a few seconds. Laura buried her face on his shoulder and clenched and unclenched her vaginal walls around him, coaxing out a primal growl of him and making his hips press even deeper into her. She felt so stretched and full. It was heaven.

Slowly, he pulled his length out only to push back in at the same agonizingly slow speed, his head still tugged into the crook of her neck, while his hands snaked under her shoulders to hold onto her in a half hug as his hips picked up speed and his thrust became harder.

“You feel so good,” he breathed hotly into her left ear and sucked her earlobe into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth and making her gasp. Laura’s hands moved up and down the curve of his back, tracing the graceful line of his spine until she reached his butt.

The bedroom lay completely dark now, only a few street lights from the road below created a bluish, ghostly haze in the air. But neither of them needed to see anything as they fucked… No this wasn’t _just_ fucking, Laura thought and lifted her legs higher around his hips to allow for deeper penetration, letting him bump into her cervix with every hard thrust. They were still hugging each other so tightly that her clit rubbed against his pubic bone, sending waves of prickling excitement through her with every contact.

Laura took a deep breath as she pressed her nose against his scent gland and was suddenly high on his pheromones.

“Harder,” she demanded underneath him and clenched her vaginal muscles around him so tightly that he groaned from the sudden tightness that wouldn’t let go of him. “Fuck me harder.”

The hotness and weight of his body over her, the constant rubbing of her clit, and his intoxicating scent brought her second orgasm closer and closer with every second that passed. Her muscles relaxed around him again and Daniel followed her order. He lifted his upper body off of hers and leaned onto his hands beside her head, thrusting harder and harder until the bed’s headboard banged against the wall in a quick staccato. That and her growing cries spurted him on even more. Laura looked up into his face, sweat dripping from the tip of his nose and chin, and came completely undone.

“I’m cumming,” she whispered hoarsely and arched into him as the first wave of her orgasm crashed down on her.

“Me too,” she heard through the rushing of her blood in her ears and groaned as the first thick jet of semen hit her cervix. She could feel every powerful throb of him as her pussy milked him for every drop of cum he had.

Daniel collapsed on top of her, both of them fighting for air as they came down from their shared high. Laura was the first who could form a coherent thought again and she regretted it. Because now that he had gotten what he wanted from her, he would surely roll off of her, get dressed, and add her as just another one of his adventures to his long list of lovers.

As if he had heard her thoughts, Daniel indeed rolled off of her, but instead of leaving, he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. His nose buried itself in her damp hair and took deep breaths, which Laura copied as her head rested on his shoulder. After a bit of maneuvering around, they managed to pull a blanket over them and soon after drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who has a question mark hovering over their head right now as to why he didn't knot her; In my omegaverse Alphas only knot Omegas because of the higher pheromone level.


	6. The Model Cliché

The next morning Laura felt cold as she woke up from the sound of the toilet flush. She opened her eyes when the blanket over her was suddenly lifted at the edge a few moments later. The sun was just starting to rise and filled the room with the first warm hue of the day. Daniel smiled at her when he saw that she was already awake.

“Good morning,” he greeted her and cuddled closer. He accidently grazed her feet with his and flinched away from them with a gasp. “Damn, you’re cold.”

“Sorry, I’m almost always cold,” she replied and pulled her feet up to her butt under the thin summer blanket. But Daniel had another idea. He moved even closer and dug under the covers for her feet. When he found them, Laura lay on her back underneath him lust like last night.

“Thank God I always have warm hands.” He let his eyes wander over her body that was now completely exposed to him in the growing daylight. Laura instantly grabbed the edge of the blanket and wanted to cover all of her physical flaws again, but Daniel kissed her before that could happen.

“Laura, it’s okay. Nobody is perfect. I think, you’re beautiful the way you are.”

She arched her eyebrows and looked him up and down, at least what she could see from her position. “Can’t see any flaws on you.”

“You’re not looking hard enough,” he whispered and dipped down to kiss her again. “Might also be a side effect of the whole ‘artist sleeping with model’-cliché.”

“Yes, must be that. I glorify you,” Laura replied with a smirk and let her eyes feast on his typical muscular Alpha body, forgetting that she was still buck naked.

“Do you have eggs?” The question caught her off guard.

“What?”

“Eggs in you fridge. I could die for some pancakes. I make the best in town.”

Laura’s stomach growled just in time for his smile to split his face in half as she nodded. He jumped out of bed, searched her messy bedroom floor for his boxers before he padded his way into her kitchen.

Laura used the time to jump under the shower and wash off the traces last night had left on her body. Her skin was sticky from the sweat while the dried cum on her upper thighs reminded her that they probably should’ve used a condom… STD’s and all. According to Laura’s cycle tracking app she wasn’t in her fertile period so pregnancy shouldn’t be a problem.

Fifteen minutes later, Laura stepped into her kitchen-living-room and smiled widely at the smell that filled the air. Daniel was twirling in her small kitchen, flipping the pancakes artistically. He already had a small tower of them waiting for someone as hungry like Laura to eat sitting next to the stove.

“Hey,” she greeted him as she closed the distance between them and breathed in the warm smell her guest had filled her apartment with. It all seemed so… perfect, too perfect for Laura to simply believe it. Daniel was out of her league, yet he had apparently enjoyed what they had done last night. Did that mean that they were serious now?

“Why didn’t you leave last night after we were done?” Laura asked, her eyes staring down at her Mona Lisa themed socks. Artist through and through.

“What?” Daniel turned around with a deep frown. “Did you want me to? Shall I leave now?”

“No, I’m just not sure why-”

“Why I didn’t treat you like a cheap one-night stand? Have an educated guess, Laura. Maybe because I wanted to spend the night with the woman I had just had amazing sex with. Please, do me the favor and tell me what I’ll have to do to help you trust me?”

Daniel looked at her with a mixture of thinly veiled anger and something that reminded her of desperation. Laura suddenly felt guilty that after everything she was still suspicious of him.

“Sorry, I… I just have a hard time trusting-”

“Me,” he interrupted her and crossed his arms over his bare chest, his anger slowly also weaving into his natural scent. “Do you regret last night? Because I don’t.”

“And you want to repeat it?” Laura didn’t lift her eyes from her feet out of fear she would see him burst out laughing if she did.

“Yes, actually, I would like that”, he replied in a soft voice, his anger erased again. A second later he had closed the distance between them and cradled her face with his warm hands. “Now, can we please eat before the pancakes get cold? I have to go to work in a couple of minutes anyway and I wanted to enjoy the couple minutes we have left.”

His touch caused her heart to thud in her chest and her eyes to fall shut. All those words she so desperately wanted to believe. Laura wanted to be happy and definitely to feel his hands roam over her body just like he did last night. Her eyes fluttered open again when his lips gently touched hers. The angry growl from her stomach interrupted the slow kiss and they finally sat down on her kitchen aisle to eat. The pancakes were amazing, causing her to moan and wishing they wouldn’t have to work today.

Daniel kissed her goodbye and told her that he had a busy week but would gladly return on the following weekend. As soon as he had left, Laura had time to wonder about his sincerity again. But he wanted to meet her again, wanted to spend more time with her, even though he had already gotten what he wanted. So he really meant it, right?

 

* * *

 

 

Two days later, on Wednesday, Laura met with her older sister, Jenny, for lunch. She had invited her into the same restaurant Daniel had taken her out to on their first… date. Laura still felt weird thinking of it as their first date because that meant that she had dropped her panties at their second one.

No, she wouldn’t let her insecurities and suspiciousness get in her way again. With a smile, she greeted Jenny as she waddled into the restaurant two minutes after Laura had arrived herself. Her older sister looked ready to pop any time now and the annoyed growl she expressed when she dropped down on the chair opposite from Laura told her that she couldn’t wait to give birth.

“How are you?” she asked and only got another growl as an answer. “So bad?”

“Harry hardly lets me leave the house and Allison and Jeremy are throwing tantrums now that they will soon have to share my attention with the babies.”

“Just shows how much they love you,” Laura said with an encouraging smile.

Jenny snorted a laugh and shook her head. “No, more that my kids know which buttons to push to get my attention. But I have to tell myself that Allison will be in school soon and that she will have to move out from home then.”

She sighed deeply and shook her head, her hand coming to rest on her belly automatically. Laura’s eyes followed her gesture and the familiar stab of jealousy hit her again. She was only two years younger than Jenny but still struggled to find the one man who she had practically stumbled upon on a stroll in the park. For heaven’s sake, when was her time to moan about the heavy life of a mother?

Jenny sensed that her little sister was getting upset again and, after the waiter had taken their drink orders after she handed them the menus, asked her if anything exciting was going on in her life. Since Laura had always been shy, it had hit her even harder when Jenny, her closest and only friend, had been sent to Finewood Academy at the age of six. But ever since she had returned, they had become as close as twins.

“I… I was commissioned to paint a portrait,” Laura began, her cheeks already turning red from what she would reveal, “By Daniel Blake.”

“That asshole from your school?” Jenny lifted her dark eyebrows in disbelief. “Why on earth have you agreed to spending a single second with that pretentious, slimy, degraded-”

“I slept with him.”

Jenny fell silent instantly and waited for her sister to wink and laugh, but Laura stayed serious. “Before or after?”

“The painting isn’t completely done yet, but after sketching and the underpainting was already done.”

Jenny only nodded but said nothing, which was already enough for Laura to know that her sister didn’t approve of her and Daniel’s ‘relationship’. She scrunched up her nose by the thought of it. Did they have a relationship? It seemed like it, almost. They definitely shared a professional relationship since he had commissioned her, even if he hadn’t paid her yet. Maybe, if their private… friendship (?) developed further, she would refrain from billing him for her work. 

“He makes you happy, I assume?”

“I don’t know yet, but he doesn’t make me feel bad.”

“There should be guaranteed happiness at the beginning of a relationship, Laura. After living together for a couple of years you could feel less bliss, but not right from the start. I don’t want to play spoilsport, but I advise you to be careful,” Jenny warned with compassion in her brown eyes before scanning the menu for something to eat.

“The lamb in herbs is really good,” Laura murmured, buried deep in thought. Maybe her sister was right and she probably shouldn’t be so trusting, but then again, should she sabotage her chance of love and affection because of her suspicious nature and insecurity? She had a talent for ignoring his intent to marrying an Omega in a couple of months. He wouldn’t do it, not now that he had been with her. He couldn’t be so cruel, could he?

They ate, Jenny followed her sister’s recommendation and was in heaven after the first bite while Laura moved her cannelloni around on her plate.

“I’m sorry, Laura, I didn’t want you to fall from cloud nine. I’m just worried that he might be using you for fun. He didn’t seem overly nice to you in school.”

“Yes, we talked yout that already. He said that he hardly had time to be nice because I was busy or withdrawn most of the time.”

Jenny arched an eyebrow at that. “So, he had time to be shitty to you with Chris and Jason but not to say ‘nice to see you’? I think he was making up excuses. And what about prom?”

“Jenny, can’t you just be happy for me and let the past slide? I can.”

“Alright, alright.” Jenny sighed and shook her head. “I just vividly remember you coming home with the dress you begged dad for for weeks, your eyes red and puffy, two hours before prom had even ended.”

“Yes, I remember that too. Can we please talk about something else now?” Laura asked through clenched teeth, glaring at her plate instead of her sister because she knew she only meant well. It was only that Laura didn’t want to hear it right now.

“What would you like to talk abou?” The Omega smiled motherly. Allison was almost six years old and therefore she had enough experience to calm her sister down again.

“You? My niece and nephew? Emma and her perfect life? Anything.”

“Alright, me: I am pregnant with twins who are due 25th of August, so still one and a half months, but I already hate being so immobile. I feel like a freaking whale half of the day and the other half I am so bloated I feel like I should be hovering over the ground an inch or two. Nothing I can actually recommend to anyone.”

“Shouldn’t Omegas be all over being pregnant?” Laura teased, knowing that Jenny had never actually been easy during her pregnancies. During Jeremy’s she had been thrust into a whirlwind of emotions so badly that she had buried herself in her nest for the latter two trimesters to avoid stares on the street. Seemed like this pregnancy she was annoyed most of the time.

“I already told you about Allison and Jeremy and how they aren’t making it easier for me. And do you really want to know about how Emma is swooning over her Alpha and how perfect they fit together? I talked with her yesterday. She should be starting preHeat today, so in two weeks she would be over the freaking moon even more.”

Laura slid deeper into her seat and regretted asking about her sister’s bliss while she had a hard time knowing if Daniel and her were serious or if he just used her for his own entertainment.


	7. Conflicted

The following Saturday, Daniel stood in front of her door with a bright smile and the same suit bag he hadn’t needed last Sunday. 

“Hey,” he greeted her and swiftly pressed his lips onto hers before Laura had even closed the door behind him. She let out a startled little cry against his lips before closing her eyes and melting into him. The suit bag landed on the floor so that his hands were now free to roam over her body. Daniel pressed her tightly against his front and boldly slipped his hands into her pants, cupping her ass.

“I've missed you all week,” he groaned against her lips and squeezed her butt hard. Laura opened her eyes and turned her head away when he wanted to kiss her again. Jenny’s words of warning still echoed through her brain and now that he was back with her, it only became louder. She pushed his hands from her and closed the door. None of her neighbors needed to hear what was going on between them.

“Shall we begin with the painting?” Laura asked without looking up into his eyes.

“Are you alright?” His voice was heavy with concern and if she had lifted her gaze from the laminate underneath her feet, she would’ve found the corresponding expression on his face. “Laura?”

She didn’t react and just wanted to start with the painting; first business, then maybe the pleasure. But Daniel caught her by the arm before she had even reached her couch. Now she needed to look at him.

“Laura, is everything okay between us? Did something happen since we last saw each other?” He made a small pause before his eyes turned sad. “Do you regret what happened?”

Her heart skipped a beat or two. “No.”

Laura twisted her arm out of his gentle grasp and thought about the right words.  “I just don’t know why you wanted to sleep with me in the first place.”

His eyebrows drew together and he let out an annoyed sigh. “How many times do I have to tell you that you’re beautiful?”

“How about as many times as you and your ‘friends’ called me princess piglet?” she murmured and heard him swallow hard as his cheeks turned pale all of the sudden. He definitely remembered the bullying he, Jason and Chris had put her through in school.

“I’m so sorry, Laura,” he said after a long pause, his eyes oozing sincerity. She felt herself drifting into forgiveness again. Laura wanted to believe him, wanted to take every happy moment he had to offer her.

When Daniel extended his hand again, she let him pull her against his body and hold her close. He rubbed her back and apologized again in a deep voice. The sound travelled through her like electric waves, all eventually pooling in her panties. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and lifted her head off his hard chest to kiss him tenderly. Though the second his hands came down to squeeze her round ass for the second time, the kiss turned more passionately. A few minutes later they stumbled into her bedroom just like last Sunday to undress each other in record time. Since Daniel had already seen her naked once on Monday morning, Laura felt more comfortable when he pulled off her dress before burying his face between her big breasts, sucking in her subtle scent.

He took her from behind this time, leaving bruises on her hips from digging his fingers deeply into her flesh as he thrust into her harder and harder until he came with a deep growl. Laura hadn’t come yet, but Daniel didn’t intend to leave her high and dry. He pulled out and told her in a husky voice to lay on her back. He kissed her deeply, sucked on her erect, pink nipples, and used his skilled fingers on her pussy to make her cum, hard.

She needed a few minutes to come down from her quivering high again, laying safely in his arms, while catching her breath. When Laura could form a coherent sentence again, she looked into his peaceful face and a smile stretched over her lips. He wouldn't hurt her. Jenny didn't know him. Sighing contently, she snuggled into his chest. They napped for a bit before Laura woke from her growling stomach.

“Hey, you,” she heard his sleepy voice grumble shortly before his arms loosened around her shoulders.

“Hey, any more fantastic restaurant recommendation for today?”

“No, but a great place for delivery food. I feel like eating in my underwear today,” he replied and sent her a smirk and a eyebrow wiggle. “The best pizza place east of Chicago.”

“No lamb or shrimps today?”

Daniel shook his head and let go of her to search for his phone in the pile of clothes next to the bed. He pulled up the website and showed her the food offer. It had all kinds of pizza and pasta dishes with exoctic ingredients like safran or caviar. Of course, it couldn’t just be pizza with sausage or spinach.

“That’s a pretty fancy pizza place. I can’t effort half of this just for the fun of it. I have bills to pay,” Laura murmured and rested her head against his shoulder.

“You’re invited.” Daniel pressed his lips against the crown of her head and they soon settled on pizza with salami for Laura and one with tuna for him.

“Can we please not eat in bed, though? I’m not a big fan of crumbles in the sheets,” Laura asked and a few minutes later they sat on her couch, her in her favorite comfy combo, namely flowy shorts and a tight fitting shirt with a cartoon version of the mona lisa showing the peace sign over her boobs, and him in only his boxers. Daniel had laughed seeing her shirt but hadn’t otherwise commented on it. His hand lay innocently on her naked thigh, squeezing it here and there, as they waited for their food to be delivered. They filled the time surfing the tv for something worth watching. In the end they settled on a rerun of a crime show that had gotten some shit because for some reason the creators believed it was a wise decision to dramatize abuse of Omegas. With two Omega sister, Laura didn’t enjoy these episodes. Who would? Although it was important to talk about these things since many 'normal' people still had all kinds of misconceptions about what an Omega really was.  Laura snuggled closer into Daniel as the actress with her fake split lip and black eye told the police officers what her husband had done to her. Great entertainment.

“Would you rather watch something else?” Daniel asked after he'd picked up on her slightly irritated scent.

“Nah, it’s alright. Better than all those home renovation shows that keep showing the same houses.”

“What? You are not interested in grey walls and yellow furniture that makes every house look like IKEA vomited into it?” he asked with a snort and a chuckle, burying his nose in her hair before sucking in her faint scent. “Your apartment looks pretty much like an interior designer picked out most of the items.”   


"Really?" Laura looked around her little home and arched her eyebrow. The dominating wall and furniture color was white. Her wall space was covered in picture frames with art prints and even one with dried flowers next to her book shelf full of art history books and some pretty embarrassing novelettes filled with 'instaromances' and badly written love scenes.  “I wouldn’t call this a stylish home. It's just mine.”

“You should see my bachelor pad. You would probably walk out backwards after the first couple of steps. I think the only stylish thing in there is my bar counter.”

“Well, you definitely need a woman in there,” Laura laughed but remembered a second later that she wouldn’t be that woman. His Omega would be in a few months. Before any of them could say something though, the doorbell rang and their pizza arrived. The delivery boy sent him a knowing smile when Daniel opened the door in just his designer boxers and a smug grin on his face.

“You couldn’t have made it more obvious,” Laura snickered when he sat down next to her again.

“Why not let him know what a lucky guy I am.”

They ate in front of the tv, made jokes, and Laura enjoyed just talking to him, until the air heated up again and they found themselves making out on the couch before they got back into the bedroom for round two of rolling around in the sheets. They fell asleep quickly after that but shortly before Laura drifted off to sleep, a feeling of total comfort washed over her as she pressed her naked form against his side, his warm skin moving against hers as they breathed in the heavy scent of sex that still hung heavily in the room.

 

* * *

 

The next morning began like last night had ended. Daniel kissed her awake, mumbling something about needing some attention, before he dived under the blanket and licked Laura to orgasm and back down again. He made love to her that morning, gentle thrusts, kisses, sweet torture when he had her worked up again but wouldn’t let her come just yet.

“Tell me what you want,” he demanded breathlessly, holding her arms over her head, pressed into the mattress so Laura couldn’t get herself off.

“I want - Ah!”

“No, you’re not coming before you tell me.”

“I want you!” Laura shouted desperately, her eyes screwed shut from the coiled up feeling burning in the pit of her stomach. “I want you to make me come so hard, I’ll scream my lungs out! I want everyone in the house to hear what you’re doing to me! I want my neighbours to know that you’re the best -AH!”

Laura couldn’t finish her sentence before she felt him throb hard inside her and jets of hot cum painted her inner walls white. Daniel let out a deep guttural sound as his head fell forward and his lips instinctively latched onto her scent gland. The sensation of his orgasm multiplied as he stimulated the sensitive spot in the crook of her neck and she came with a choked out scream of ecstasy. A few moments later, Daniel rolled off and immediately wrapped his arms around her. Laura smiled without meaning to and snuggled into his embrace, drifting back to sleep until she woke up again at 11 a.m.

Daniel was already up and dressed, sitting next to her in bed and browsing the latest news on his phone.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” he said with a smile, took off his glasses and put his phone onto her nightstand. “Or rather good day. It’s almost noon.”

“Well, if someone hadn’t… fucked me into a coma, I would’ve been up earlier,” Laura replied and stretched under the covers to get her joints back in place.

“I know a nice little café at the Bond River Promenade that serves a delicious brunch. Interested?”

She suddenly wondered how many other women he had taken out to the same restaurants he had taken her to. But Laura pushed that thought away again and got dressed in her favorite yellow summer wrap dress she hadn’t worn in two years. It was weird how her happiness with him was so fragile and he still managed to make her feel like she finally had a reason to dress nicely again. 

Laura asked herself how serious they were now that they had spent several nights together and it didn’t seem like he was particularly interested in getting on with the painting. And things got even more confusing when they exited the cab that had brought them to the Bond River Promenade and he casually took Laura’s hand as they walked the short distance to the café. She stared at their interlaced fingers for a moment before simply enjoying the physical contact and the knowledge that even if they weren’t a couple, at least to the other pedestrians strolling along the promenade they seemed like one. Brunch was heaven on a plate just like he had promised and instead of finally working on his portrait, they rather repeated yesterday; only moving from the bed to the couch for delivery food and back to burn more calories.

 

* * *

 

On Monday morning Laura woke in an empty bed. She let her hand glide over ‘his’ side and found it completely cool. So, he had left before seven a.m. she gathered since checking on her radio alarm on her nightstand told her that she had woken up 15 minutes before her alarm point eight.  Laura sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. She felt cheap all of the sudden. Daniel should’ve at least woken her before simply sneaking out of bed. Two days of living her dream life with her dream man and as soon as the work week began, she was alone again. Laura got up and took a quick shower to get his scent off of her before going into the kitchen to make herself a cup of desperately needed coffee.

Her eyes immediately fell on the note on her fridge, written on her pink pineapple shaped sticky notes.  _ Sorry, I left without a word, but I didn’t want to wake you. I had to leave early because I’m on a business trip to Naughton for the rest of the week. I can’t visit you on the weekend either, but here’s my mobile number. 0555-71152258. Miss you already, Daniel _

Laura had never saved a number quicker in her life and sent him a message that she was missing him too only to feel like a lovestruck teenager again. She groaned at herself and got ready for work.

 


	8. Stressed Out

On Tuesday Laura wished she had just stayed in bed when her boss waltzed into the museum cellar and announced that the museum had just bought a whole bunch of new paintings, and that most of them needed to be completely reworked until their reveil in three weeks. She had looked around the restricted space she and the other five art restaurators had to work in and arched her eyebrows. 

They were already stepping onto each other’s feet as it was and they were supposed to work on even more paintings at the same time. But protest wouldn’t have changed a thing, so she had just sighed and put on her glasses to get back to work on her current work, a painting of an American surrealist who had also dipped into cubism, but since none of the art restaurators could actually specialize in particular art styles, Laura had no other choice but to be a jane-of-all-trades.

So when she came home that afternoon, she only wanted to go to bed and pull the blanket over her head, but the ringing of her phone pulled her out of the comfort of her bed again. She hoped it was Daniel, but when she saw her little sister’s caller ID. Laura groaned, but picked up her phone.

“Hey,” she greeted Emma and slumped down on her couch, ready to listen to half an hour of swooning over Jason and what a wonderful husband and mate he was. And she was right. After the usual “how are you”s and “it’s been so long”s before Emma finally told her that she invited her and Jenny on Sunday. She had to tell them amazing news. Laura was pretty sure she would tell them that she was pregnant and that her perfect life would only become more complete.

She accepted the invitation, knowing that Daniel would still be out of town and she would have nothing better to do. Why not humiliate herself and then enjoy something her sisters both couldn’t: a huge glass of whiskey on ice that would knock out every Omega under the sun.

 

* * *

 

When Sunday came, Laura had asked Jenny if she could pick her up on her way to their little sister, knowing that she would have no nerves to stay for too long and after the shitty week she had had, she’d actually planned on staying on the couch with lowbrow tv shows that helped her forget her bosses nagging voice and the incredibly annoying music most of her colleagues listened to on repeat during work.

Yet, Laura wasn’t lounging on her couch in her shorts and baggy shirt but sitting in Emma’s living room, feeling sick from Jason’s scent all over the apartment and especially her sister. Of course he had claimed her during their first shared heat and it came to absolutely no surprise that Emma was pregnant and beaming like a radioactive chipmunk.

Laura said virtually nothing for the three hours she was trapped with her now two pregnant sisters, who had no other topic than being bonded and expected children. Emma asked a ton of questions about what it was like to give birth and Jenny got into so much detail that Laura’s insides clenched out of fear that it could “tear” and “get stitches” just from listening. Fuck.

When Jason came home early afternoon, he sent Laura a smug look before kissing Emma hello. It was an unnecessary long kiss that only reminded Laura that Daniel was still out of town and she was alone. Her eyes dropped to the carpet when she couldn’t take the sight anymore. She wanted to be home and cuddle into her bed where some traces of Daniel’s scent still remained in the pillows. Ridiculous how much someone can miss a person they had only spent a few days with.

Jenny noticed her sister’s absent expression and nudged her in the side.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just tired. Didn’t sleep well the whole week. I’ve got a lot of stress at work. We-”   


“I have even more fantastic news,” Emma interrupted her sister with a bright smile, oblivious of her impoliteness. “Jason will soon transfer to his new office in Naughton and we’ll move into a huge house, almost a mansion really.”

Laura sank down in her armchair and remained silent for the rest of the afternoon. Jenny brought her home again. Usually the oldest sister wasn’t easily annoyed, but she needed the whole ride back to Flint to vent about Emma’s inability to understand that the world didn’t revolve only around her. Laura caught glimpses of Harry holding onto the steering wheel with knuckles turning white. He obviously had had a long day with Allison and Jeremy at home while his mate had spent time with her sisters.

“Thank you for driving us,” Laura said quickly while Jenny needed to breathe in before she could continue with her rant. Harry looked at her in the rearview mirror and thanked her. Apparently Jenny had one flaw in her perfect mateship and bond, she didn’t seem to show Harry enough how appreciated he was. After that little interruption Jenny simply continued until Laura’s head hurt and she couldn’t wait to get out of the car.

Fifteen minutes later, Laura was finally home and only wanted to turn on the tv when the silence in her little apartment threatened to suffocate her. Emma had her freaking perfect bastard of a mate and Jenny was blessed with the most wonderful man she could’ve started a family with. And Laura? She looked around in her apartment with nobody who welcomed her home. Not even a cat. She was alone. Laura’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She had had a horrible week at work and none of her sisters cared enough to actually listen to her when she wanted to tell them something. And tomorrow morning she would have to go to work again and sit hunched over another badly damaged painting because she had no other choice.

She slumped down on the couch and pulled her pillow into a tight hug as the first tear ran down her cheek. Her chest felt trapped in a vice as she gasped for air through the lump in her throat.

Suddenly her phone rang. Laura glanced at her handbag she had dropped next right after coming in and fought with herself if she should actually get up and at least look who was trying to reach her. Thankfully she did.

“Daniel,” she breathed relieved as she answered her phone and wiped her cheeks dry again. Of all people she knew, he was the only one she actually wanted to speak with.

“Hey, are you okay? You sound… strange.” He sounded so close, yet he was achingly far.

“I just had a rough week,” Laura said and expected him to simply accept that as the answer the same way her sisters had, but Daniel asked more questions.

“What made the week so rough?”

“My boss is breathing down my neck and we got new old paintings that need a lot of attention next to all the other paintings we need to finish better yesterday.” She slid deeper into her couch cushions and kept telling him everything her sisters weren’t interested in. Not that it was much, since after five minutes, Laura was already done and asked him how his week had been. Though they had sent each other a couple of texts over the course of the last six days, hearing his voice made it appear like he was actually there with her right now.

“The usual talk about a business fusion. We have been thinking about connecting our law firm with a rivaling company here in Naughton for a few months now and I had had the glorious task of negotiating the terms and conditions. I spent most of my days in a stuffy office without a functioning AC sweating through all of my shirts while feeling like a freshman. I hated it. Every second of it.”

“Poor baby,” Laura cooed with the first relaxed smile in days tugging in her lips, "Emma told ne today that Jason will transfer to Naughton?"

"That's new to me. I mean, we talked about keeping both offices open, but I didn't know Jason wanted to move there." He hummed, thinking again. "Well, maybe I'll get briefed when I'm back."

Silence suddenly threatened to settle in between them, but Laura quickly chased it away when she asked in a low voice, “When exactly will you be back?”

“I’m literally sitting at the gate waiting for my flight to be called. Can’t wait to see you again… and to sleep in my own bed again.”   


Laura laughed. “There’s no bed like the own bed. Though you’ll have to decide whether you would rather see me or your bed again.”   


Daniel chuckled and pretended to think very hard about his answer and she could picture him completely oblivious of the people around him in the airport while he crossed his arms as best as he could while holding his phone or rubbing his chin as he hummed thoughtfully.

“As much as I love spending time with you, I’m afraid my bed wins. It’s just that we have been in a serious relationship for over 8 years now and we’ve been through so many ups and downs, and it never let me down, caught me when I was too exhausted to stand anymore, and helped me through every night while I worked my ass off to get my promotion.”

“Sounds like true love to me.” And Laura couldn’t believe her voice sounded as steady as it did after hearing his “I love spending time with you.” So, he didn’t just use her. She was walking on clouds. Crying a couple of minutes ago and now smiling from ear to ear.

Daniel wanted to say something else but was interrupted by an announcement she couldn’t quite make out but his reaction told her it was his flight.

“Alright, that's me. I have to go now. Do I see you on Friday? I’m afraid this week will be just as tiring as the last one.”   


“Of course, till Friday.” Her euphoria died down again, when she realized she would have to wait for another five days before she would see him again.

“Can’t wait. Bye.”

Laura went to bed straight after he had hung up. At least she wasn’t as alone as she had thought and she definitely won’t be next Friday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a rather short chapter, but I hardly had any time writing the last couple of days. Should be better now, but I think, I will upload in a 3-day and not a 2-day schedule from now on.
> 
> I will also answer some comments tomorrow while I'm stuck on the train home again.


	9. Intimacy

On Friday Laura was close to collapsing when she finally came home. She dropped her heavy handbag the second she was inside her apartment, sat down on the couch, and turned on the TV to keep her head busy with something before it could shut off and she would fall asleep before Daniel had even arrived. But as things were, she still dozed off and only woke up again from the shrill, annoying sound of her doorbell ringing. Laura fought against her overwhelming exhaustion when she made her way to the door and buzzed the street door open. She leaned heavily against the door frame and waited for him to finally show up in front of her.

It took him only a minute until he kissed her hello and gently pushed her into her apartment to kick the door shut behind him. Laura wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed against his lips as her lungs filled with his scent. The faint trace of it that was still left in her pillows was nothing compared to the real thing. 

“I fucking missed you,” he moaned deeply and let his hands roam over her body. His fingers almost naturally found their way back into the waistband of her tight fitting jeans and only stopped when he cupped her butt.

“I missed you too.” Her arms snaked around his chest and pressed her cheek against him, listening to his heartbeat. It was lulling her back to sleep. She could’ve dropped into bed right away, but since Daniel was here, she wouldn’t get to sleep for a few more hours. The thought made her groan.

“Are you okay?” he asked and let go of her, bringing a couple of inches distance between them to be able to look into her eyes. “Were you sleeping before I came?”

She nodded and wanted to snuggle back into his chest, but Daniel stopped her.

“Do you want me to go again?”

Panic struck her and Laura was suddenly wide awake again. “No, I’m awake.”

She grabbed his hand and was about to pull him into her bedroom, but Daniel wouldn’t move. His eyebrows dropped in suspicion as he screwed his hand out of her grasp. “What are you doing?”

“Getting into the bedroom to have-”   


“Sex?” he finished her sentence and suddenly looked annoyed. “Do you think I’m only here for that? If you’re tired just say it. I’m not a sexcrazed animal.”   


“But I don’t want you to leave,” Laura replied and reached for his hand again, but he pulled it away.

“And I asked you, if you want me to leave, Laura. I missed you, but not just the sex. I missed  _ you _ .” He stepped closer and rubbed his warm hands up and down her upper arms, sending a tingling shower down her spine. “We can go to bed and just sleep. I had a shitty week and, if I’m totally honest, I don’t think I would’ve performed very well tonight anyway. But I want you to know that you don’t have to sleep with me to keep me here.”

Laura let out a deep sigh and nodded, and if she hadn’t been so tired, she would’ve been embarrassed to the bone. 

He stepped even closer until her head rested against the center of his chest again. Her eyelids felt heavier with every second that passed.

“Can we go to bed then? I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

“Of course,” Daniel mumbled into her hair, “as long as you don’t force yourself to do anything you don’t want, because you think you have to for me.”

She nodded and brought herself to let go of him again, before they both dragged themselves into her bedroom. The lights stayed off as they began to undress each other. There was nothing sexual about it, just the closeness of two bodies. Laura pressed soft kisses against his collar bones as she smoothed his dress shirt off his shoulders. Daniel caressed her soft skin on her waist when she was down to her underwear. Yet, he stayed in his boxers and she put on a long sleep shirt before crawling into bed next to him.

It had been a long time since Laura had simply slept next to a man without having to have sex beforehand. She snuggled closer to him until he wrapped his arm around her and her head could comfortably rest on his chest. Melting into him, her world was suddenly complete. This intimacy between them had been absent from her life for so long and to finally have it literally in her arms made her burst with content.

“Thank you,” she whispered. 

“For not being a douche?” Daniel chuckled and buried his nose in her hair, taking a deep breath before letting out a low moan. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

If he could be any more perfect, he would be a Disney prince, Laura thought and finally fell asleep with a smile tugging on her lips. 

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Laura woke from the feeling of being way too hot. Something that never happened to her. Usually she was freezing even in the hottest summer, but today she needed to kick off the blanket and accidently hit something that moaned in return.

“Ouch,” Daniel murmured next to her and Laura suddenly remembered what had happened last night. A wide smile split her face in half as she opened her eyes and found him only a few inches from her, blinking his eyes open to combat the merciless morning sun that shone right into his face. Laura lifted her hand to cast a shadow so that he could actually look at her.

“Sorry, I was hot.”

His arms around her waist grew tighter as he dipped his head to kiss her shoulder. “You’re always hot.”

Laura snorted at that and heard him chuckle deeply against her skin. Warmth spread within her from the center of her chest outwards into every last corner of her body. She loved him, there was no denying it. This feeling in her was addicting and she was on the fastest way to become dependent on him. His scent, calming and arousing at the same time, his warmth that chased away all coldness inside her, and his mind that always seemed to move on the same frequency as hers. If only he had asked her earlier to paint him.

Laura’s eyes flew open. The painting.   


“When do you plan on sitting model for the portrait again?” she asked and turned around in his half embrace to look into his sleepy face. He shrugged and buried his face in the crook of her neck, moaning deeply as he took in her faint scent. As if he had just sniffed an Omega, his cock that was pressed against her hip swelled and got harder with every second.

“Maybe today, maybe next week, who knows,” he rumbled and gently pushed Laura onto her back as he crawled on top of her and created a small trail of kisses as he moved downwards. “But I know exactly what I wanna do right now.”

You didn’t need to be genius to know what he had in mind as his hands pushed her sleep shirt up over her hips and stomach until it eventually bunched between her chin and breasts. She sighed in anticipation of what would come as he brought her thighs up over his shoulders and eased  her panties to the side to have unobstructed access to her already wet pussy.

He was a master with his tongue, bringing her to the heights of her orgasm in no time and Laura could see in the sparkle of his blue eyes that this power over her turned him on much more than any blowjob or lapdance could’ve ever done. He grinned at her smugly, when she slowly came down from her high again, sweat covered brow and gasping for air. The small bedroom reeked of the smell of her arousal. Testimony of his skills.

Daniel crawled up over her heaving body and caught her open mouth with his, kissing her senseless with her taste on his lips. Laura wrapped her arms around him and let her fingernails trace the hard lines of his back muscles. He was burning under her touch.

Suddenly Laura had a boost of confidence and wanted to try something new for her. She pushed him gently onto his back and straddled him. Laura was submissive in the bedroom, being on top had never been part of her sex life, but she felt safe enough with him to try. With her panties still tugged to the side, she ground her dripping wet folds over his cock, not only getting him harder but also building up her second orgasm. 

Daniel pulled her sleep shirt off completely and purred at the sight of her.

Laura stopped her movements for a split second. She had almost forgotten what a purr sounded like. Her father's had been a little deeper if she remembered correctly.

She shook her head. Her father had no place in her head right now. Daniel had purred because of her, because of her sagging tits and stretch marks on her belly. Laura shook.

“I could get used to this sight,” he said in a deep tone and let his hands wander up and down her thighs at both sides of his hips. “Truly a sight to remember.”

“You don’t mind it?”

“You on top? Not at all.” His fingers traced the waistband of her panties until he grabbed hold of her grinding hips.   


“That’s not what I meant.” Laura looked down at herself and her confidence shrank with every new flaw she found.

“I know, Laura. But I told you before, you’re beautiful.” His right hand came up and cupped her cheek, pulling her face gently down to his so he could kiss her again. 

Intimacy, Laura thought with a deep sigh against his lips, this was true intimacy. Laura moved one hand between them and guided the head of his cock to her entrance without breaking the kiss. The both moaned loudly when she sank down onto him slowly, enjoying the feeling of being stretched from a different angle, having him put pressure on part that she had never felt before. 

But the pleasure was short lived because as soon as Laura wanted to move, her leg started to cramp.

“Ou, ou, ouch, shit.” She fell onto her side and held the hurting leg, laughing and suffering at the same time.

Daniel snickered but quickly helped her stretch and massage the muscle to chase the stabbing pain away.

“Fuck. Maybe I’m not meant to take control,” Laura sighed and looked up into his smiling blue eyes.

“You just need a bit practice. I’m happy to assist you.” Laura grabbed her pillow and threw it at him. “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that.”

“What will you do? Ravage me?” She bit her lower lip, hoping he would do exactly that and he did. Laura spend most of the morning on her back and with her knees pushed up to her ears until her head was red and she needed to plead him to stop. After her third orgasm she was simply too sensitive to take more of his fucking anymore. Daniel came over her stomach and tits, rubbing it into her skin like lotion before washing it off during their shared shower. 

Another intimate moment she had never shared with anyone else; feeling his fingers massage her scalp as he washed her hair. She loved every minute of it, every non sexual touch that made her feel like she meant something to him, like she was more than just an affair to him.

He made pancakes again and after eating while lounging on the couch, she had to be strict about continuing with the painting.

“But when it’s finished, I don’t have an excuse to come back here,” Daniel joked, but it scared Laura so much, she dropped her brush. Of course, he was only joking, but the thought of losing him made her almost reconsider her plans, but the painting had to be finished at some point. Better before his 35th birthday.

Laura painted him silently for the rest of the day. He had asked if she minded listening to some music if he wasn’t allowed to talk while she was working and she had just shrugged, too concentrated to actually hear his question or the music his phone was playing. She couldn’t remember one song, wasn’t even sure about the genre. Somehow jazzy, but more electric.

Daniel said goodbye in the late afternoon. He was invited to a friend’s birthday party and still wanted to get home to change into fresh clothes. The kiss before he left was short, the goodbye even shorter, “See you in a week.”


	10. Unseen

Emma had called on Friday afternoon and had chewed Laura an ear off while dreamily telling her sister what an amazing husband and mate Jason was, while Laura bit her tongue to keep from telling her what an asshole he had been to her at school. So, he better treated Emma like a goddess or Jenny and she would get his ass behind bars so quickly that not even his lawyer daddy would’ve been able to get him out. But of course Emma hadn’t just called to swoon, she’d also wanted to invite Laura to go shopping with her and Jenny.

Laura had thought of her wallet and image of a moth fluttering out of the empty thing had come to mind, but Emma had also told her that she wouldn’t have time this weekend anyway and wanted to suggest the next one for their trip. Thankfully, she and her colleagues had managed to restore the most important paintings from the recent bunch and their schedule had relaxed again, so she hadn’t felt like she needed to hibernate the entire weekend, and accepted the invitation. This weekend though she waited unsuccessfully for Daniel to come by like he had said. He only answered her texts on Monday morning.

_Sorry, couldn’t come. Wouldn’t have been good company after the week I had._

Laura asked if they would see each other the following weekend, but he hadn’t answered.

 

* * *

 

 

On Wednesday, she still waited for Daniel to answer her texts and she was starting to panic. What if her happiness was over just as quickly as it had began?

With a heavy heart but a frozen smile on her lips, she decided to surprise him in his office during her lunch break. That way he would have to talk to her and maybe tell her what she’d done wrong when they’d last seen each other. Maybe he was just through with her and he had already met someone else, someone thinner, taller, sexier...

Laura needed an answer or at least a clear cut. So, she found herself in the front of the reception desk of Daniel’s law firm where his name had already been added to the logo, _Frost, Frost and Blake_. The Frosts being Jason and his father Robert. Laura saw how this was a big deal for him. Jason was only partner because of his father but Daniel had actually worked his way up to that sign on the wall behind the two beautiful blondes sitting at the front desk.

“Can I help you, Miss?” one of them asked her with a smile on her deep red lips.

“Uhm yes, my name is Laura Rafaelli. I’m searching for Daniel Blake’s office. I’m his…” What was she to him? “A friend.” Though she was undoubtedly so much more.

“Is he expecting you, Miss Rafaelli?”

“No, I was just closeby and wanted to surprise him.”

“Oh, let me see if he is in a meeting right now,” she said and typed something into the slim, modern pc in front of her. A few seconds later, she looked up to Laura again and told her with the same polite smile, “He’s not. I haven’t seen him leave his office for his lunch break, so he should still be in house. His office is the last one on the right down that hallway.”  
“Thanks,” Laura murmured and looked down the corridor she had pointed at. Everything was grey and silver, even the wooden floor seemed to have a grey sheen over it. Laura couldn’t imagine working in such a drab surrounding every day.

She made her way down the long hallway and took a deep breath when she stood in front of his office door. His name was written next to it in bold letters as if they needed to be heavier to show that his position in the company was so important. Or maybe she was just crazy.

With ice cold hands she knocked and heard a mumbled, “Come in.”

Laura entered the big corner office with a magnificent view over the entire city of Flint. It was an imposing sight, though one that Daniel couldn’t appreciate since he sat with the back to it. He was hunched over a stack of papers, his head resting heavily on his palm as he flipped through the document bundle on top.

“Hi,” Laura said in a small voice when he wouldn’t look at who had just entered his office. Once he heard her voice, his head snapped up as his eyes grew wide and almost panicked. Daniel quickly stood and hurried over to her, a strained smile on his lips.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” He closed the door behind her as if to make sure that nobody saw them together. Laura’s guts clenched at the thought that he might be embarrassed by their relationship. No, it couldn't be. They had been to restaurants together, twice.

“You haven’t replied to my messages and I wanted to make sure that everything was okay between us.”

“What? No, everything’s fine.” He gestured to the pile of documents on his desk. “I’m just busy. But I think I wrote you that, didn’t I? There was no need for you to come here. I mean, I’m happy and all, but this is my office...”

“And I have nothing to do here, I get it,” Laura said in a whisper and wanted to leave again before he could see how rosy her cheeks had suddenly gotten. She shouldn’t have come here today. But before she had a chance to flee from the office, he stopped her with a hand around her arm.

“Wait, I’m just really stressed at the moment. I’m working through my lunch breaks for this stupid business fusion and Jason will definitely leave for Naughton in two weeks, so thanks for the heads up. I will come to your apartment after work today, okay?” Daniel gave her a wry smile that widened when she nodded. “Alright, I bring take out. What do you want?”

“Whatever you’d like. I’m not picky.”

“Great, prepare for Thai.” He guided her over to the door with a warm hand on the small of her back, before turning the handle with his other. Both of their faces froze when they suddenly stood in front of Jason. His one hand raised, undoubtedly because he had planned on knocking only a few seconds later, while he held a new bunch of very important papers in the other. His dark blonde eyebrows shot up to his hairline when he recognized Laura.

He opened his mouth, but Daniel moved quicker. He pushed Laura out of his office and ignored her questioning look back over her shoulder as he snatched the papers out of Jason’s hand.

“What’s that?” he asked stiffly and acted as if Laura was nothing but air. She turned around and had a hard time processing what had just happened. So, he was embarrassed.

“Wasn’t that my sister-in-law, princess piglet? What the fuck are you doing with her?”

“She’s just painting me, I told you that. Come in.”

Laura’s steps slowed as the two men disappeared into Daniel’s office. As soon as the door had closed, she hurried back and, rather juvenile, pressed her ear against the cold wood of the barrier between them. ‘Just painting him’ was more than an understatement and she wanted to know what other lies he told his best friend about them. She would wish she hadn’t eavesdropped.

“And you really want to make me believe that she was here to look at the wall? C’mon, Danny, I’m not stupid. Are you doing her?”

Now was Daniel’s chance to tell Jason that they had been seeing each other for almost exactly a month now and that he thought of her as beautiful.

“Yeah, well, she’s just a pity fuck,” he snorted. What?! “It’s so easy to make her believe I like her and as things are now, I think, I’ll get the painting for free.”

Laura gasped as the words sank in. This couldn't be true. He liked her, he truly did, he had told her she was beautiful. Her chest clenched hard at the thought that he had lied to her all this time. Used her to get a better deal and to have some fun. Just another notch on his bedpost. Tears swelled in her eyes. Laura needed to get away from here. Everything suddenly pressed down on her, making it impossible to breathe. Her hands were cold, her feet moved on their own as they hurried down the hallway and to the elevators across from the blondes at the front desk. They had probably been laughing about her too. Why should a fat pig like her be friends with Daniel Blake anyway?

Without thinking, she hurried home and forgot that she still needed to work. Only when her boss texted her while she sat in the subway home, she remembered and lied that she wasn’t feeling well and was taking for the rest of the day off. But, was it a lie, really?

Tears ran down her cheeks as her chest clenched painfully hard, squeezing the air out of her lungs. A heart wrenching sob escaped her before she could press a hand over her mouth but nobody in the subway paid her any attention. Like so many other times.

Laura had cried her heart out on the train ride and dragged herself into her apartment where she immediately dropped down on her couch. She stared into the void before she remembered that he would show up in a few hours with food in front of her door.

No, no, no, no.

Laura’s eyes wandered over to the door of her studio where his portrait was still waiting to be finished. It only needed a few more details before she needed to let it dry for 24 hours and then it would be off to him… with the invoice over the whole 3000 bucks. He would pay every single dime of it.

She walked into her studio as if in a trance, her body shaking from the sobs she wouldn’t let out, before she slowly sank down on her chair and stared at the painting. It was close to perfect. Daniel stared at her out of his piercing blue eyes, she had grown to love over the last couple of weeks. A silent tear ran down her cheek, her hands shook as she reached for the palette and paints, her mind circled around the things he had said. Pity fuck. Had she really been so blind?

Her fingers worked out of habit, not because her mind was actually awake enough to make conscious decisions. She wanted it done and out of her apartment to give him no more reason to play his role as the dashing, perfect Alpha who was the answer to all of her dreams. He hadn’t changed, had only hurt her again.

Laura let out a wet sob as she mixed the paints. She had been a fool, had let him play her like a fucking fiddle. He had told her everything she had needed to know to let him close, so close that she had given him everything. Every single part of her; heart and mind.

She mixed the perfect glazing color and pulled up the reference photos she had snapped of him right in the beginning. She knew she would’ve needed it at some point. Laura cried silently as she painted the man who had broken her heart. He had told her that as soon as he was old enough, he would get himself an Omega. She should’ve listened to him and not her wishful thinking. He hadn’t changed, he wouldn’t change for her.

She was just putting down the brush after hours of work and tears running down her cheeks when she heard the annoying ringing of her doorbell. A tired glance at her watch told her that it must be him, ready to play his part for her again. But it was over. The curtain has fallen and they were on two different sides.

He tried again, but Laura didn’t move to let him in. Her phone buzzed, telling her that he was calling. She didn’t answer. He would give up in a few minutes and leave her alone again. Then he could forget about her and … He must have been disgusted with himself everytime he had kissed her.

The sudden thought brought more burning hot tears to the surface and drowned the room in the scent of her utter sadness and disappointment. This heartache was the purest evidence that she had been foolish enough to fall in love with him, despite all the warning signs and her better judgement. Her mind rebelled against the ache in her chest. He had wronged her, she should be answering the door and yell at him who he thought he was!

But when she was at her door, the thought of seeing him again scared her to death. She wasn’t strong enough to be angry when she looked up into the same blue eyes she had just finished to perfection. Even if her blood boiled, her fingers were still cold and her tears hot.

Laura wanted to go back into the studio to clean up her brushes when she suddenly heard Daniel’s footsteps coming down the hallway. Fuck, someone must’ve let him in. Laura stood on the other side of the door and listened to his mumbles before he knocked. The sound was so loud it startled her in the complete silence of her apartment.

“Laura, I can see light in your apartment. Are you awake?” he yelled through the door. Laura took a few steps back and covered her mouth with her hand, muffling all sounds that could have given away that she was wide awake and only a few yards away from him.

“Hey, the food is getting cold!”

Her feet carried her over to the protecting door without her permission or command.

“Laura?” Her phone in the studio buzzed again, and again is would go silent unanswered.

“Great,” she heard him hiss before his steps move further away from her apartment door.

He had left. She broke down.


	11. Payment

On the following day, Laura had sent the portrait, once it had been completely dry, together with the official invoice to Daniel’s office. It arrived Friday morning according to the courier’s tracking service, and she would completely and forever be done with him as soon as he transferred the money over to her bank account. Not a single word would have to be spoken between them, never again. Where she had been heartbroken on Wednesday, she was now floating in a stormy sea made of unadulterated hatred and indescribable sadness. Laura had dragged herself through the day and was actually looking forward to meeting Emma and Jenny this afternoon just because they would provide the much needed distraction. 

Laura checked her watch when she heard the doorbell at 3 p.m. on the dot and frowned. Usually they were half an hour late, not that she would complain about thirty minutes less Daniel Blake in her head. Laura buzzed the street door open and already opened her apartment door while searching for her phone that she had thrown into the farest corner of her bedroom to make sure she didn’t check on the messages Daniel had left her over the last two days.

“Laura?” she heard and froze as she recognized his voice. What was he doing here?

She immediately hurried into her living room and her heart beat like a doldrum.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her hands turning cold as her cheeks turned red with anger.

“Since you are not returning my messages, I am visiting you now.” He made a short pause and looked her up and down. “And I received the painting this morning. When did you finish it?”

“On Wednesday.” Laura crossed her arms over her chest, feeling the flutter of her rapidly beating heart trapped inside of it. There were so many things she wanted to yell right now, but she would only start crying if she indulged into her wish. Her god forsaken wishes had caused this whole mess to begin with. She would listen to reason for a change now that Rome was already ablaze.

Daniel nodded slowly and studied her for a few seconds which felt like hours to her. Laura hated it, hated how his scent made her feel the same things she had loved before but loathed now: comfort, content, lust, love. The memory of how easily he had played her for a fool stung with every breath that filled her lungs.

“Uhm, can you tell me what is going on here? I thought we wanted to meet on Wednesday evening but you didn’t answer the door. I was worried something had happened and now you’re telling me you were home and working?”

“I finished the painting you commissioned me for. That was our deal.” And everything else had been extra. “Now you have no more reason to come here.”

His eyebrows drew closer together at her cool demeanor and emotionless tone. Inside she was close to bursting into tears and throwing heavy things and colorful insults at him, but she had learned early on that it was easier to hide her emotions when need be.

“And what if I  _ want  _ to come here?”

“Then you’re out of luck,” she retorted, “You have two weeks to pay me, otherwise I will have to take legal actions. And now I want you to leave. I’m expecting my sisters any minute.”

Daniel’s eyes clearly showed his confusion and the anger that was slowly simmering behind them. He didn't understand why she was suddenly acting so stangely, but she had also hadn't been able to grasp how he could've called her a pity fuck. “Fine. You’ll get the money on monday. Goodbye.”

And with that he left, throwing the door shut behind him. Laura looked after him, sniffing against the tears that wanted to spill out now. Her throat closed around the hard lump that had formed during his short visit and made breathing an almost impossible task. She couldn’t hide in her bed now. Jenny and Emma should be here any second and she still needed to get ready if she wanted to head out at quickly as possible. 

After thirty minutes of torturing herself with all kind of other thoughts, anything but Daniel Blake, Laura finally heard the doorbell again. This time she used the intercom to ask who was there before letting her sisters into the building. She checked herself one last time in the mirror next to her bed before opening the apartment door with a strained smile. Emma beamed at her until she picked up on the weak but unmistakingly foul scent of distress that surrounded Laura.

“What happened?” she asked, concern making her beautiful doll face look paler. Jenny joined her with eyebrows drawn together and worry in her brown eyes.

Laura kept her smile up and whispered, “I found out that somebody had been lying to me.”

“Who I think?” Jenny asked, worry quickly being replaced with anger.

Laura wanted to have distraction, not talk about it. The tears she had been fighting against were now dangerously close to falling, but she sniffed against them bravely and nodded once. 

“That fucking asshole,” Jenny hissed and before she had a chance, Emma was already hugging Laura without even knowing who they were talking about exactly.

“I’m so sorry. If you’d rather stay home than go out and listen to us the whole day, you can stay home.”

What was she supposed to say to that? No? Laura had no chance to, since Emma let go of her, and immediately walked down the hallway back to the elevators. Jenny looked after her with a shake of her head and a deep sigh.

“I’m so sorry, too, Laura,” she started, “I can come by tomorrow morning, is that’s okay? I can’t let Emma walk around the city alone.”

“Yeah, of course.” Laura looked down to her shoes and sniffed against her tears once more. Jenny hugged her tightly and kissed her cheek. “He doesn’t deserve someone as wonderful as you anyway. He’s the loser here.”

Funny how if he was the loser, she should've been the winner. But Laura only ended up crying as soon as she was alone again in the apartment where she had spent so many happy hours with this hound, this liar, and heartbreaker. Daniel had acted like she didn’t have any reason to be mad at him and she began to wonder as she lay in bed and stared at the pillow he’d had rested his head on, how many other horrible things he had said behind her back. She should’ve listened to her gut that it was impossible for someone like him to every truly like, love, her. Laura belonged to a different kind of breed, an invisible Beta who could only hope for a glace from a powerful Alpha like him. 

 

* * *

 

Laura was still in bed when Jenny showed up the next morning. She hadn’t even bothered changing out of her clothes last night, so she was still drenched in the scent of her sadness and disappointment, a nauseating mixture, when she let her sister in. So while Jenny made them some breakfast, Laura quickly showered and changed into fresh clothes before dragging herself into the living room.

“Is Harry watching the kids?”

“Yup. He made them, so he can also spent time with them.” A very well functioning couple, Laura thought and the longing in her to have the same only made her want to burst out in tears again. “But you’re the important one here now. Do you wanna tell me what that dickhead did?”   


“You were right, isn’t that enough said? I was stupid not to listen to you and my guts.” She pressed the button on her coffee machine and leaned against the fridge. “Now I have to deal with my own stupidity.”

“You weren’t stupid and it’s not your fault he’s a douche. Like I said yesterday, he didn’t deserve you, not a single second.” Jenny hugged her sister tightly, pressing her impossibly huge baby bump against her while purring deeply to soothe her little sister. But only a second later she suddenly stopped and took a step back. Laura frowned, she wanted more hugs and purrs! Why could nobody just give her the comfort she needed?

“When was your last period?” Jenny asked, rubbing her warm hands up and down her sister’s upper arms, giving her at least a fraction of body contact to calm her.

“What?”

“Don’t get me wrong, but you kinda smell pregnant.”   


“You’re probably just smelling yourself,” Laura huffed and gave her an arched eyebrow. Fate couldn't be so cruel to give her a baby from the man who had hurt her like this.

Jenny arched her eyebrow es well, mirroring Laura's expression. “But I smell the sweetness on you, not me.”

Laura huffed an incredulous laugh again and retrieved her phone. She couldn’t be pregnant. That was impossible. She had the app and it had… She hadn’t checked on it during the last month, she suddenly realized. There had been no time over the last four weeks during which she had felt like a slaughtered pig, bleeding out and suffering through the torments of hell like usual.

On no. Laura checked her app and she should’ve just ended her last period, but she definitely knew that it hadn’t happened. Jenny followed her into the bedroom, where she'd kept her smartphone. When she arrived, Laura sat on the edge of the bed and stared into the void. She couldn’t be pregnant with Daniel’s child. He had broken her heart, had used her, and now she had screwed herself over even worse by being so caught up in the idea of them that she had let caution and common sense fly out of the window.

Jenny sat down next to her and lay her hand gently on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I need to take a test,” Laura replied, still staring straight ahead at her cluttered dresser.  She left the apartment without another word and hurried to the closest pharmacy, telling herself over and over again that this couldn’t be true. It had to be a mess up in her cycle because of her stress she had had at work. She couldn’t be so unfortunate.

Half an hour later, she was back in her bedroom, reading through the instructions of the pregnancy test to make sure she did everything right. Jenny was still there, acting as moral support and a shoulder to cry on when the result would come back. 

“No matter what, I will always be there for you,” she said just before Laura disappeared in her bathroom. Her head was hurting as her future suddenly depended on a little while plastic stick and what it would show in a couple of minutes.

Her hands were covered in cold sweat as her insides clenched out of fear and, oddly enough, excitement. Laura had always wanted children. She loved her niece and nephew to the moon and back, but being a single mother and that to Daniel’s child seemed like a lifetime punishment. Would her baby have his eyes? Should she tell him? Would he come back to her if she told him?

Laura shook her head. He was embarrassed by her. He had used her and lied with every smile he had sent her way. Jenny was right, she deserved someone better. Someone who would look at her with nothing but love in their eyes. Her hand travelled down to her lower belly. Her baby. Her own little family apart from her sisters. 

Laura sighed and left the bathroom after she had sufficiently peed on the testing strip. She joined Jenny who had moved into the living room to the couch and waited with her. The test needed a few minutes to come to a result so she could cuddle with her sister.

“Scared?” Jenny asked in a soft whisper and draped her arm around Laura's shoulders. She gently carressed her back and purred so lowly that it was hardly audible, but not without impact. It calmed Laura as much as she needed to keep from freaking out.

“I would be an idiot if I weren’t scared.” Laura’s head rested on Jenny’s shoulder and she sighed again as her muscles relaxed at the comforting purr. 

“And what will you do when it comes out positive, because it will. It’s his, right?”   


Laura nodded and swallowed thickly before she could start crying again. She wanted this to be a happy occasion even if it was unplanned and would change her entire world. She ignored the fact that it was Daniel’s baby. 

“Will you tell him?” Jenny asked shortly before the timer went off telling them that it was time for the truth. Of course the result was positive. Laura had known even before taking the test.

“I don’t think so. He will get his Omega and be happy with her.” Now she was getting sad again because it should’ve been him and her right now, the parents. They would’ve never been a happy family, not with his plan to mate an Omega… and the way he talked about her among his friends. 

“Did you tell Emma who it was?”

“No, although she tried almost everything to make me talk. Since she is married to the enemy, I thought you didn’t want him to find out.”   


“Thanks,” Laura said and stared at the two little blue lines that have changed her life forever. She was going to have a baby.

 

* * *

 

Laura managed to get an early appointment at her gyno where her pregnancy was officially confirmed and she received her maternity log. The doctor simply took the date of Laura’s first time with Daniel as the day of conception and determined the due date to be at the end of April.

After Jenny had left on Saturday afternoon, Laura had fought with herself if she shouldn’t tell him, no matter what she had told her older sister. Despite everything, he was still going to become a father. But now that she sat in the subway on her way back home, Laura stared at his number in her phone’s contacts list before deleting it eventually. She didn’t need anyone who lied to her and broke her heart, not when she would have her hands full with a baby.


	12. Winter Wonderland

Four months later

 

Laura looked down to her phone with a sigh. Emma called, again. In the last weeks leading up to Christmas, she had called her at least twice a day to ask about their mother’s Christmas recipes. Now at the 20th December, Laura still waited for the actual invitation, even though she knew she was going to receive one. Not that Laura was particularly excited about the prospect of staying with Emma and her mate in their house on the fancy outskirts of Naughton.

Laura sighed and answered the phone. She sat down on her comfy couch and rested her free hand on her baby bump. Her pregnancy was past the halfway point and she had loved every day of it. Unlike Jenny and nowadays also Emma, she had an easy time. No overly tiring or tormenting with morning sickness or water in her feet. Her baby boy was as healthy as a baby could be according to her doctor and that was what mattered most. At least this one thing in her life that went well.

“Hello, I’m sorry for calling you again, but I just talked with Jenny and she says that now with the twins and all, they can’t take you to us on Saturday. How will you get here now?”

“I wasn’t even invited yet,” Laura said with a smirk that widened at the silence that followed, but since she didn’t have a driver’s license and hated flying like the devil hates holy water, she was definitely faced with a major problem. Naughton was a little over 500 miles away from Flint, nothing she could just walk. Jenny had been her fall back plan.

“But you will come, right? I planned everything with you included. It’s Christmas, we’re family. The guest room is already prepared for you too. I even forced Jason to drive to the fancy organic market to get the super sweet oranges you love to much.”

“Of course, I will come… if I can get to you somehow.”

Emma hadn’t called if she hadn’t already had a solution. “You could come with Daniel.”   


Laura’s heart stopped for a second or two. “Why is he coming too?”

Why couldn’t he celebrate Christmas with his own family like every normal person? Why did he have to use hers for that? In the last months she had worked long and hard to forget him, even though it was pretty impossible with his son growing under her heart.

“His mother is in Europe at the moment -said something about visiting his aunt- and he will visit Hannah on Christmas day so he would be in the area anyway.”

“Who is Hannah?” Laura already knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

“Oh, if everything Jason told me is correct, she will soon be Mrs. Blake.” Emma laughed. Jenny and Laura had kept her in the dark about Daniel and her, and that he was the father of her baby. “Apparently it had been all decided decided when Daniel had been here in Naughton to negotiate during the business fusion back in July.”

Yes, Laura remembered that business trip.

“Hannah is the daughter of Wilson Briggs, Jason’s new partner.”

Why was she surprised by that? Daniel had been after an Omega his whole life. It still hurt because the mental image of him brought back the happy, now hurtful, memories.

“Anyway, Daniel has to work until the 22nd and I already asked if he would be so kind to pick you up, and he agreed,” Emma told her and Laura was sure if she declined his offer, she would still have to come up with an alternative and Emma would wonder what she suddenly had against him. Laura clenched her jaws tightly before she tool two deep breaths and eventually agreed.

“Perfect! I’ll see you on Saturday.”

 

* * *

 

On Saturday, Laura sat on her packed suitcase outside her apartment building while the snow silently fell from the heavy, grey sky. Winter was her least favorite season. She was always cold and now even nature was against her. She duck her head between her shoulders and buried her hands deep in the pockets of her light green parker, keeping her and her son warm while they waited for his… Daniel to arrive. She would behave civil towards him, but ignore him otherwise. He had his Hannah, she had her baby.

Laura checked her phone if he had called her or sent a message to inform her that he would be running late, but no. He was just late. Laura waited almost twenty minutes in the cold, her body cooling down to the point that she lost the feeling in her toes, while her anger started to simmer underneath the surface. He fucking knew how much she hated the cold!

When she was close to exploding, a fancy red sports car drove down the street and came to a stop right in front of her. 

Fucking showoff, Laura thought with clattering teeth. She stood up and involuntarily flashed her baby bump at him just as he rolled down the window, undoubtedly to yell something poetic at her along the lines of getting her ass in the car. But his plan flew out the previously opened window and instead of looking into her glaring eyes, he seemed completely fascinated by her belly.

“Open the trunk,” Laura ordered angrily, shaking and picking up her small suitcase. Without a word, he exited the car and took the case from her to put it into the trunk himself.

“Please, sit down. Sorry for being late.”

No word about her pregnancy or anything, but at least he apologized. Laura opened the right car door and his scent immediately lured her in. She had missed him, her body had missed him, the father of her baby. She bit back a small moan as she sat down and closed the door again to keep the cold outside. He joined her soon after and so the ride began.

Laura prayed he wouldn’t talk to her and just leave her alone, but she was out of luck as soon as had left the crowded streets and silver skyscrapers of Flint behind them.

“You want me to turn up the heat?” he asked while already reaching for the heat controls on the middle console. Laura said nothing, only slid deeper into the seat and opened her jacket wider, letting out her baby bump. And again, he stared at it, if only from the corner of his eyes now with the snow covered street he had to pay attention to.

“So, uhm, you’re pregnant.”   


Thank you, Captain Obvious, Laura huffed internally and remained silent.

“Who’s the father?”

She closed her eyes and took a calming breath before she could snap. 

“Someone I had a short affair with, but he wasn’t interested in a relationship with me. He wasn’t who I thought he was.” This was going to be a funny drive, if he would keep asking her questions.

“But he does know?”

“Yes, he found out recently.” It wasn’t wrong. 

He made a small thinking hum before opening his mouth again with a frown. “But an affair? Doesn’t sound like you.” He shook his head. “I mean, you’re almost comically romantic.”

‘Comically’ it echoed through Laura’s head as she stared out of his window at the frosted houses that were slowly being replaced with more and more trees. He wasn’t wrong. She has always been a romantic, until he’s showed her twice in her life now, that people were selfish and false. “Well, then I guess people now have something to laugh again.”

Daniel tried talking with her again but Laura only gave one word answers until he eventually gave up again. She continued to gaze out of the window and at some point wrestled out of her constricting jacket because with the heating she was actually getting too warm. Now with her bump on permanent display, Daniel asked about the father again.

“How did you meet him?”

“Through work.” Again, not a lie.

“And he doesn’t want… him, her?” Daniel’s voice dropped an octave as if he was getting angry at the imaginary man.

“It’s a boy, and like I said, he’s otherwise engaged and it wouldn’t have worked out anyway.” Laura wondered why he was suddenly so interested in her, if he already had his future mate picked and waiting.

“So, you’re going to be a single mother? Do you even know what you are getting yourself into? Doing it alone w-”

Her head snapped around to him at the last word before she interrupted him sharply, “And what exactly do you know about being alone, let alone being a single mother? You have never been alone! Either you fuck around or surround yourself with the Frost brothers. Why don’t you talk to me again when you actually have something to say?”

She shot him a glare, but Daniel returned it with just as much fuming anger. His fingers closed tightly around the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white, his nostrils flared under his hard breathing, and ire poured out of every pore of his.

“To your fucking information, I know exactly what it’s like to grow up with a single mother because my father fucked off as soon as he was 35 and forgot me and my mum ever existed. I know what it’s like to spend your days alone in the school’s library studying because I didn’t want to go home and hear my mother ‘’negotiating’’ with the landlord because her two jobs weren’t enough to pay the rent on time. So, I fucking know what I’m talking about. While you could rely on your daddy’s money, I had to work very hard for my scholarships and earn money so that I wouldn’t have to comfort my mother every month after that asshole had visited her again.”

Laura’s cheeks had turned almost a crimson red as she’d listened to him. She had never actually thought about his family. Since he’d never mentioned anything about it, she’d assumed everything in his childhood had been picture perfect. But as it turned out she wasn’t the only one with skeletons in the closet. 

Silence settled in between them again for a long time until Laura had to ask him to stop at the next rest top for her to go to the toilet and pick up some snacks to soothe her growling stomach’s demands.

Daniel nodded and thankfully the next stop was only a few miles away. He fueled up while she did her things and eventually returned to the car with her arms full of sweet and salty snacks. Laura was shivering again when she sat next to him and pulled her parker tighter around herself before Daniel turned up the heat as they continued their trip. Once she wasn’t shivering anymore, Laura started to devour the chocolate bars which she shared with Daniel without thinking about it. He would’ve been too busy watching the icy road  to eat anyway. The snow had gotten worse, robbing him of almost his entire sight. Neither headlights, nor wipers helped.

Suddenly the tires lost grip and the car slid uncontrollably over the lonely road. Laura held onto the seat, adrenaline pumping through her veins, and all she could think of was her baby. Daniel tried to get the car under control again with one hand on the steering wheels while his other protectively covered Laura's bump. The car came to a sudden stop when it rammed head first into a snowbank by the side of the road. 

Her heart was racing, her blood rushing in her ears, and her breath going hard as she slowly realized that she wasn’t going to die. Daniel needed a moment to find his speech again. He looked over to her and was about to say something when he was rudely interrupted by a small kick against his hand. His eyes immediately dropped down to her belly. There was something in his expression that scared Laura as soon as she could pinpoint what exactly it was: he looked like he was getting attached and she wouldn’t let him do that. She pushed his hand away and saw him blink a few times before he cleared his throat.

“Are you okay?”

Laura nodded and rubbed her belly to soothe herself and her still kicking boy. She hummed and purred lowly until her little donkey had finally calmed down again. With a relieved sigh, she relaxed into the seat and noticed that Daniel was still looking at her.

“We should keep driving,” she suggest and pulled him out of his staring.

“Yes, of course,” he whispered and started the car again. It gurgled alive again and he took a deep breath before setting the car in reverse. Daniel carefully pressed down the gas pedal but the tires found no grip on the ice covered road. 

Oh no, they were stuck.


	13. Hotel Room

What else could go wrong? She was stuck with no other than Daniel Blake in a car… a car that was currently refusing to get it’s snout out of a snowbank in the middle of no man’s land. Laura ran her hands over her belly while Daniel tried over and over again to get them out of the ditch. After the fifth attempt, he finally stepped off the gas pedal and punched the steering wheel once, twice, three times before he sank back into his seat and went through his pockets on the hunt for his phone.

“Fuck, no reception. What about yours?”

Laura searched for her phone as well but didn’t have any better news for him. “Same.”

Daniel let out an irritated growl and left the car. The snow still came down so heavily that Laura could hardly see him move outside. When he wouldn’t return after a few minutes, she exited the car as well. The second she felt the first snowflake land on her cheek, she was freezing again.

“Daniel?!” she yelled, worry suddenly gripping her and twisting her guts sadistically. Movement from the corner of her eyes caught her attention. She could hardly see his dark form against the fluffy, blindingly white snow. He stood by the front of the car that was buried almost halfway in the tall snowbank, using his hands to shovel them out of it, but it was for naught because only more snow came down on it.

“What are you doing? That’s useless.”

“At least I am doing something!” he yelled back at her annoyed and kept shoveling before he eventually stopped with a loud, “Fuck!”

Laura only shook her head. He was a disaster. This stupid sports car wasn’t meant for this weather and because he needed it to stroke his ego, she was the one freezing and shaking right now. Laura slid back into the minimally warmer inside of the car and wrapped her arms around her middle. She snuggled deeper into her seat and nibbled on a chocolate bar while waiting for the snow to stop. But before that happened, Daniel joined her again, and again he tried to drive them out of the mess. Unsuccessfully. 

Laura wordlessly offered him another chocolate bar which he eyed for a moment before accepting the kind gesture.

“I have no idea how we’ll get out of this,” he admitted with a growl and bit into the sweet treat. 

“Hopefully somebody with a more equipped car will come alone.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s all my fault,” he snapped.   


“That’s not what I said, Daniel,” Laura hissed back at him and rolled her eyes. If he wanted to give himself the blame, it was fine with her, but he shouldn’t lay words in her mouth. Laura hugged herself tighter and rubbed her upper arms to generate some warmth, all while she felt him look at her and her treacherous heart beat faster again. He was off limits but her body longed for his closeness. She closed her eyes and forced herself to forget about him, but he unintentionally made it impossible when he took off his thick wool coat and covered her with it like a blanket. Fuck. His warmth still left in the material and the familiar scent of him hugged her and suddenly made her feel weightless.

Laura bit her tongue before she could let out a content little sigh. Instead she thanked him in a low voice and turned her head to the side to bring more distance between them in the restricted space. In her head she could still hear him call her a pity fuck. The hurt helped with not giving into her body’s longing to ask him to hold her close. And then there was also Hannah.

“We can’t be too far away from Naughton. Maybe one hundred more miles.”

“Still sounds pretty far to me,” Laura replied, mumbling into his coat. He was probably thinking he would miss his date with his future mate while being forced to spend time with the girl he screwed up twice. She glared at him when she remembered the feeling of complete and utter betrayal back at prom and then again in his office. How could he be so ruthless and still attempt a smile when their eyes met?

“You know he’s an idiot, right?” Daniel said after a few moments of just looking at each other.   


“Who?”

“Whoever left you.” He nodded down to her belly.

How right he was about the idiot part, but Laura had more colorful words for him in mind. “Seems to be a recurring theme in my life and what do you care anyway?”

“Well, you were the one pushing me away, so maybe you might find the reason this happens so often when you look in the mirror.”

He couldn’t be fucking serious! Laura breathed in to tell him exactly what had made her push him away, but she was interrupted by a deafening honk. Daniel’s head snapped around to the source and a small smile crossed his lips. A huge pickup truck stood behind them, its headlights hardly illuminated the street through the still heavily falling flakes. Daniel left the car and talked to the driver, asking for his help, which he gladly offered. While the men worked on getting the useless sports car out of the snowbank, Laura sat in the pickup and watched, still wrapped in Daniel’s coat. With the handy winch attached to the pickup’s front it was only a matter of minutes before the car was back on the road.

“Thank you. I don’t know how long we would’ve been stuck here without you,” Laura thanked the stranger, a bull of a man with a thick beard and bushy eyebrows over his kind, brown eyes. He smiled at her and suddenly remembered Laura of Santa Claus with all the snow catching in his beard.

“No problem. I would advise you and your husband to stay in a hotel nearby. The snow isn’t going to calm down until tomorrow morning and you were lucky you only got stuck in a snowbank.”

He wasn’t wrong -apart from the husband-thing, but she let it slide- and Laura had to think about her baby before anything else. Daniel was obviously not able to drive in this weather, so she asked for the direction to the hotel and Santa offered to lead them since he was heading the same way. Daniel’s pride was a little hurt that she didn’t find him fit enough to drive the rest of the way, but she insisted, otherwise she would drive with Santa and stay in the hotel by herself. Something about the image of her alone with another man seemed to bring out his possessiveness and he eventually gave in.

The stranger drove ahead and made sure to go slow so that Daniel could actually follow him. When they arrived at the hotel, the pickup blinked to the right so direct them the last couple of yards before the illuminated vacancy sign emerged from the snowy mess around them.

“Thank god,” Daniel breathed relieved and Laura knew he was just as glad he didn’t need to drive the rest of the way as she was. Laura only wanted to take a shower to get rid of his scent on her and then go to bed. Christmas was going to be horrible with him around all the time, especially when he was so interested in her baby boy and his father. 

She forced herself to smile at the old lady behind the reception desk and greeted her tiredly while Daniel was still busy getting their luggage. “Good evening. We’d like to have two rooms for the night.” 

The sweet lady’s friendly expression fell and her eyes suddenly looked sorry. Daniel came up behind Laura with their luggage in hand.

“Sorry, dear, we only have one room left. You’re not the only ones who were driven to us by the snow.” She shouldn’t have asked what else could go wrong, Laura knew that now as she hung her head and heard Daniel accept the room and giving the manager his credit card for payment. The lady showed them the room and informed them about the breakfast hours before leaving them alone.

Laura stared at the double bed with very conflicting feelings. It would definitely not get cold with Daniel under the same blanket, but it also meant, well, she would share the bed with him. He looked at the bed as well though he didn’t seem to mind their sleeping arrangements. Of course not, she hadn’t broken his heart. It was always her that ended up in tears.

She shook her head to get rid of the dark thoughts again and shrugged off her parker, only to gasp when she suddenly felt his hands helping her out of it. But she flinched away.

“I don’t need your help,” she hissed and ignored his confused expression.

“Oh, sorry, I was just trying to be polite.”

“Why?” Laura could feel a lump form in her throat. She was tired of pretending she didn’t care what he had done, tired of keeping up her mask. Especially now that she knew that he had his perfect future ahead of him while she would have to explain to everyone who her son’s father was and why she wasn’t with him. “Why do you suddenly care about your p-”

Laura cut herself off, tears forming in her eyes before she could call herself his pity fuck. But her glistening eyes triggered something in him. Daniel closed the small distance between them and reached out his hands to comfort her, but she slapped them away. “Don’t touch me. You’ve touched me enough.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re like a completely different person from when I last saw you.”

“I’m the same one you played like a violin.” Laura couldn’t hold back the tears, so she could also finally let out what lay so heavily on her chest. “I’m still your pity fuck.”   


His whole face dropped after hearing those words, his words. Daniel clearly remembered calling her that. 

“You heard that?” he breathed shocked, all of the sudden standing there like a kid in front of the principle.

“Yes, I heard that. I’m fat, not deaf.” He tried to comfort her again by holding her, but Laura wouldn’t let him. She fled to the other side of the bed and wrapped her arms around her middle as best as she could. “You wanted to get the painting for free, make me work for a few hours of pretended love, only to talk shit about me behind my back. All while already having an Omega secured for you.”

“It wasn’t like that, Laura. You’ve got it all wrong.”

“Really, which part exactly? Do you want to deny that you said all those things and that you met with you future father-in-law while you were on the business trip in Naughton?”

Daniel’s mouth opened but he closed it again a second later without saying a word in his defense.

“That’s what I thought,” Laura whispered and shook her head. He wasn’t even man enough to apologize, but why should he? She had never been anything but a means to an end.

Laura turned her back to him and started undressing. Tiredness wasn’t helping her current mental and emotional state.

“He’s mine, isn’t he?” she heard him ask in a low voice and froze in the middle of unbuttoning her wide denim blouse. “The baby is mine.”

“He is my son,” she replied without turning around to face him. She didn’t want him to see her strained face.

“But I am the father. The man who is already otherwise engaged, who you met through work and had a short affair with.” He slowly came closer. Laura smelt him right behind her as she took deep breaths to keep from breaking down now that he had caught on to it. She didn’t want him to know, to be part of her and her son’s life.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied, her shaky voice betraying her.

“What? Of course it does. You are going to have my child.”

Laura turned around, tears silently rolling down her cheeks as her helplessness was replaced with anger. “He's my son. Mine! You used me and I was foolish enough to actually believe the things you said. I will not let you do the same to him.”

“I didn’t mean what I said to Jason, for fuck’s sake.”

“Then why did you say it in the first place? Do you think, I didn’t notice how embarrassed you were when I visited your office? I don’t want people to laugh about me even more than they are already doing, because I was stupid enough to get myself pregnant from you.” She had finally confirmed it and Daniel moved even closer to touch her belly, now knowing that it was indeed his baby whose kick he had felt earlier that day. Laura quickly took a step back and glared at him to make him stay away. “Why, Daniel? Why did you have to hurt me like that?”

Again his mouth opened but he didn’t have an answer. And Laura was tired of looking at him. She shook her head and wiped her cheeks dry with the long sleeves of her blouse before turning to her suitcase to pick out her sleepshirt for the night.

After awkwardly undressing while feeling his eyes still on her, Laura squeezed past him to get to the bathroom. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything when she returned. Daniel sat on the foot of the bed and moved slightly out of the way when she wanted to go to her side again. Laura waited for him to say something again, anything. The silence weighed heavily in the air surrounding them, making it simmer like on a very hot summer day, but it took him until she was tucked into bed to finally find his voice again.

“I want to be part of his life, Laura. I don’t want him to think I don’t care about him.”

Laura had waited for him to say that, especially after learning about his father. She pretended to already be asleep but pondered over her and her baby’s future while he got himself ready for bed.

They would always be Daniel’s mistake, his mishap when he wasn’t careful enough, and he would come out the moral winner because he still faced his responsibilities unlike his own dad. People would see the good and honest man in him while the role of unwary woman who carelessly maneuvered herself into this position would be reserved for her. This wasn’t fair; not to her, her baby, or his Omega. 


	14. Attention

The next morning Laura woke up from a warm hand on her shoulder. She moaned and blinked a few times until she slapped Daniel’s hand away from her.

“Breakfast is served,” he informed her and rubbed the back of the hand Laura had just hit. Without even as much as looking at him she dragged herself into the small bathroom to take a shower and get dressed. Laura stood under the hot spray of water, thinking hard about what would happen now. As much as she tried, she couldn’t hate him and he would always be her son’s father. Those were simply the facts. The thought of him with another woman felt like a punch in the guts, but being with him seemed impossible as well. Laura felt like a toddler whose favorite toy was now in the hands of another child. Letting go of him was so incredibly hard.

Half an hour later, she left the bathroom to find Daniel sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched forward and with his face hidden behind his hands. The air was filled with the scent of… distress. Laura’s heart sank, but she forced herself not to give in. He deserved to be the one to stumble and land on the hard concrete that she had been thrown to by him. She walked past him and closed her suitcase again before leaving for breakfast on her own. The little breakfast room was crowded, but most people were in a hurry because they wanted to leave the hotel before the snow would start again. Since Laura gathered that they should better do the same, she ate quickly and packed a small lunch in case they would end up in a blizzard again.

Twenty minutes later they were back on the road. None of them had talked until Daniel eventually broke the silence shortly before they reached their destination.

“Would you have ever told me?”

“No,” she replied after a long pause. Her hands were caressing her belly again. She felt that her son was uneasy, probably because she was, and had developed a cute little hiccup. Cute, but slightly annoying.

“So you would’ve taken my chance to be a father to him and him to have a father in his life because you misinterpreted something I said?” The utter disappointment and accusation in his voice brought her blood to a boil again.

“And what about me? You seem very happy to ignore me and your future wife in this. Have you thought about her at all? I can’t imagine she’ll be excited to find out that you have a child with another woman.”   


“She will have to accept him,” he said in a hard voice and his hands closed tighter around the steering wheel.

“So, everyone has to listen to you despite what they want and feel. You’ll be a wonderful father,” Laura snarled and cooed at her belly to calm her baby down. Thankfully they were almost there. Only a few more minutes as she was out of this constricting space.

Suddenly the smell of raging anger crept into her nose and made her want to throw up. Her eyes drifted over to Daniel, who appeared to hold onto every bit of self control to not explode right into her face.

“You knew I would get an Omega. I told you right from the beginning. It’s not my fault you got pregnant,” he pressed out through gritted teeth, “You can blame me as much as you want, but you carry at least half the blame.”

Laura glared at him and wanted to reply something along the lines of nobody forcing him to be a father, but he wasn’t done yet, “Why the fuck did you let me cum in you, if you weren’t on birth control, huh? You wanted this to happen. Admit it.”

“NO, I didn’t want this! I wanted to believe that you actually loved me! I wanted to think that you were honest with me and that your feelings were true.”   


“They were, for fuck’s sake!”

“Not in front of Jason!” Laura shouted back and groaned when her baby kicked her hard as if to stomp in frustration over his parents’ quarrel. 

“I’m not proud of that, Laura,” Daniel said in a much calmer voice as he drove up the long driveway that lead to Emma’s imposing home. Laura was close to crying again when they finally stopped in front of it. She just wanted to get out and crash into Jenny’s arms.

As soon as the car stopped, she hurried over to the house. Laura swallowed against the tears forming in her eyes. Why couldn’t he just leave her and her baby alone? Why wasn’t this Hannah enough for him? Just as she was about to knock, Jenny opened the door and studied her sister’s strained face. The question of how she was, was totally unnecessary. Jenny looked past Laura and glared daggers at Daniel, who busied himself with their luggage again.

“What the fuck did you do to my sister?” she hissed but before Jenny could slap him, Laura grabbed her by the arm and shook her head with a pleading look in her eyes. Jenny brought her sister inside where she had to face the next challenge. Emma and Jason waited for her in the small entrance hallway. Her little sister had her hands proudly on her own pregnant belly, a month further along than Laura herself, and to Emma’s side Jason stood with an arched eyebrow as he noticed his sister-in-law’s troubled scent. Laura wished she could hide her emotions better, but as things were she only waited for him to comment on it with his usual snarl. To Laura's utter surprise Jason shut up, though that might also have been partially because Jenny was giving him a ‘don’t you dare’-look.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Emma began and darted forward to hug her sister, their bellies bumping into each other. Laura hugged her back and buried her face in her shoulder to hide her puffy eyes.

“Thank you. I’m glad you invited me,” she mumbled and squeezed her tighter.

“You’re family,” Jason replied, not sounding too thrilled… or maybe Laura was bias by now. She looked at him past Emma’s shoulder and searched his eyes for the usual malice she found in them. For once in her life he didn’t give her a scrutinizing glare, but she still felt uneasy around him. Laura let go of her sister and forced herself to smile.

“I actually didn’t sleep well last night. Would you mind if I lay down for a moment?”

Emma’s eyebrows lifted up to her hairline, but nodded. Jenny offered to show her the guest room, which also gave them a moment alone as they climbed the stairs. From the corner of her eye, Laura could see Daniel enter the hallway and receive his welcome as well. Jason pulled him close and whispered something, but instead of replying, Daniel only looked up to Laura before she disappeared on the second floor.  Alone with Jenny, she finally let out the heavy sigh she had been holding in for the last ten minutes. Her big sister pulled her into a comforting hug the second they were alone in Laura’s assigned guest room.

“I’m so sorry we couldn’t take you here. I thought, you would take the train,” she whispered into her hair and rubbed Laura’s back up and down.

“He knows-” Was all Laura could mutter before her throat closed around the lump in it. She could finally let go of her built-up tears and tension, and cried her heart out in Jenny’s arms. It took her almost half an hour before she was finally able to let go of her again.

“Sorry,” she whispered and dried her cheeks. 

Jenny stroked Laura’s hair and shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You-”

They were interrupted by a knock on the door, making Laura hold her breath out of fear Daniel could be on the other side of the door. Jenny seemed to read her sister’s mind and opened the door for her. It was Chris calling them down for lunch. Jenny thanked him tight lipped and closed the door when he tried to catch a glimpse of Laura in her distressed state. She had almost forgotten that Chris would be here too. They used to be in the same grade and Laura remembered him being okay unless his older brother was around. Then she was almost worse than Jason as if to impress him.

“I could excuse you and tell them you are still lying down,” Jenny proposed, but Laura was hungry and she didn’t want to give them even more reason to talk about her.

As the sisters descended the stairs loud voices came from what Laura assumes was the dining room. It was full with laughing people and whining children. Jenny’s twins were only a few months old and now desperately needed the closeness to their mother again, so Jenny deserted her sister and hurried over to her family. Harry let out a sigh of relief and handed his mate one of his baby girls before nodding his sister-in-law hello. Now Laura had the choice of sitting next to Chris or between Harry and Jason. Harry was about to win despite her other seat neighbor when Daniel appeared in the doorway behind her and gently guided her to the empty chair two down from Emma, so right next to Chris. 

She wanted to ask him what the fuck was wrong with him, but was interrupted by Jason’s confused, “Daniel?” and his gesture to the vacant seat right next to him. Daniel ignored him and leaned over to Laura.

“We need to talk about this.” He nodded down to her baby bump and gave her an intense look. She only reached for her glass of water and ignored him. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone?

Thankfully he did over the course of the meal. Only when she loaded her plate with more mashed potatoes than Emma, Chris started to laugh as he glanced at Laura’s full plate.

“I hope we have enough to survive with her in the house.”

Daniel couldn’t suppress his growl, not that it would’ve helped with the current mood at the table.

“Leave her alone, she is eating for two,” he said and Laura wished he would just drop the act of her lone defender. She sank back in her seat and pushed her plate away from her. Suddenly her hunger had evaporated.

“She’s been eating for two for the last 15 years?” Chris laughed and almost everybody glared at him now. The only one who was more or less neutral was Jason, but only until Emma kicked him under the table to drive him to action. 

“Chris, leave her alone. She’s family now.”

Laura couldn’t believe her ears and looked at Jenny who had arched an impressed eyebrow at the control their little sister had over the big bad wolf. Daniel’s hand reached around the back of Laura's chair and drew his fingertips up and down her shoulder. He couldn’t have made it any more obvious that he wanted to be close to her, no matter how many people suddenly stared at him. Jenny’s nostrils flared by the sight of the body contact, Jason could hardly get his eyebrows back into a relaxed position, and Harry, although his hands full with his children, gave him a suspicious glance. Laura ate as fast as she could and wanted to excuse herself right after lunch when Emma suggested that they enjoyed the beautiful snowy weather before the sun would go down. 

While everyone got ready to go out, Laura stayed behind with her arms around her middle.

“Don’t you want to join us?” Emma asked as Jason helped her into her light blue coat.

“No, I will clear the table and make some tea and hot chocolate for when you all come back.”

Daniel stopped wrapping his scarf around his neck and looked at Laura. She was sure he sensed his chance to talk alone with her, but Chris pulled him out of the door before he could shrug his coat off again. As soon as Laura was alone, she let out a heavy sigh of relief and leaned against the doorway, taking a few deep breaths, before she gathered what energy she had left to do what she had promised. 

An hour later the sun was beginning to set and Laura had figured out the modern fireplace ten minutes ago and had then started with the tea and hot chocolate. Just in time.  She heard loud voices and laughter from the door and a second later Allison hopped into the kitchen, hugging her aunt around the protruding belly.

“We had a snowball fight!” she announced and smiled brightly, showing her newest tooth gap.

“Really? Wow, with whom?” Laura asked with a similarly bright smile on her lips.

“Girls against boys!”

Movement from the corner of her eye caught Laura's attention. Of course it was Daniel, shaking the snow out of his wet, black hair. He gave her a small half smile, but was ordered back into the entrance hallway by Emma, who was annoyed with him dripping all over her hardwood floors. Jenny also called for Allison, who rolled her big brown eyes before following her mother’s command. In a few months she would be off to her academy and wish her mother would command her around.

The whole party settled in the living room, nobody even mentioned the crackling fireplace, and Laura brought in the tray with the steaming mugs. She carefully placed them on the coffee table and looked around the salon for a free spot on the couches. Apparently nobody had thought about her. Nothing new.  She handed out the tea and hot chocolate before looking around a bit more noticable and Jenny shooed her son off the couch to make space for his aunt. 

Harry sipped his tea and moaned,  “Thank you very much, Laura. We really needed that. Seems like growing up with Omegas has rubbed off on you.”

“I doubt that,” she replied and suddenly everyone paid attention to her, awaiting her to explain. “Well, I was four when Jenny went to school and twelve when Emma was born. I hardly spent any time with Omegas in my youth.”

Daniel sipped his hot chocolate and gave her an almost loving look over the rim of his mug. After swallowing the sweet, thick beverage, he smiled at her and said, “Then you must be a natural.”

Life would’ve been much easier if she actually were an Omega, but as things were she was stuck being “only” a natural.    



	15. Family

Dinner was as terrible as lunch. It tasted amazing, not quite like mum’s but since Emma had never actually spent a single Christmas with their mother it was given that she didn’t know how exactly it should’ve tasted like. Jenny and Laura ate without talking. They only listened to the men talking. Harry was debating with Chris about the necessity of safety belts in bumper cars while Jason and Daniel talked about work.

Though Laura didn’t actually eat. She only moved her food around on the plate, waiting for someone to comment on it. And sure as hell, someone did.

“Is everything okay?” Emma asked, concern heavy in her voice. Laura looked over to her and nodded with a fake smile.

“They why aren’t you eating? I’m sure I followed mum’s recipe to the last syllable.”

“That’s not it. It’s delicious. I-”

“A pig also eats mud,” Chris snarked and Laura immediately dropped her fork. She didn’t see the daggers everyone, even Jason, shot his way when she stood up and quietly excused herself. Laura needed to get away from them. How much she wished that she had declined her sister’s invitation and just stayed home by herself.

Before she reached the stairs, she heard Daniel’s growl and a second later the words that knocked the air out of her lungs.

“Why the fuck are you suddenly the knight in shining armor?” Chris asked, ignoring the fact that he shouldn’t curse in front of the children. “If I didn’t know better I would say you want a piece of her. Not that you would have to be picky with so much fat.”

Another growl, this time Jenny and Emma joined in.

“Oh, c’mon, guys. I’m just joking.”

“She’s not in the room anymore, Chris. You can stop now,” Jason said in a deep voice and his little brother stopped laughing for a moment. After that Laura decided to go up into her room for good. She had heard enough. Good and bad, and only wanted to go to bed. Her baby was kicking like a donkey again and it made eating very hard. But just as she arrived at the top of the stairs, she heard loud voices again.

“Who knocked her up anyway? Do we know that? Does she know?” Christ started again as if he couldn’t bear the thought that he had “lost” to Laura.

Oh no. Her heart skipped a beat as she prayed over and over again that Daniel would just shut up and not make it harder for all of them. He should’ve stood by her months ago, not now when she couldn’t escape their judging eyes and nagging questions.

“I’m the father, dumbass,” Daniel blurted out and everyone was quiet for what felt like forever. Fuck. Laura closed her eyes and suddenly groaned at a particularly hard kick against her stomach. She needed to lay down.

Without listening to the sudden turmoil coming from downstairs, she fled into her room and collapsed onto the soft mattress. Her son seemed to train to become a football player judging by the footwork he was already showing. Laura purred deeply at her belly and ignored the shouting that came from downstairs.

Out of nowhere it was getting louder just as Jason asked Daniel if he had lost his mind having a baby with someone else while Hannah- and there the door was closed again. Emma’s scent filled the room and a second later her bed dipped behind her as her sister sat down on it.

“Laura, do you want to be alone right now?” she asked in a soft voice and her even softer hand came to rest on Laura’s shoulder. She shook her head and turned around to look at her little sister.

“Is it true?”

Laura nodded, still purring at her son in the hopes that he would finally stop tormenting his mother. Wasn’t his father doing that enough already? Maybe he was already taking after Daniel. Hopefully not too much.

“Why did you not tell me? I’m so sorry, I suggested you come with him.”

“I had to come here anyway. We’re family.”

“But I would’ve made Jason pay for a driving service or something.”

“Jason,” Laura breathed silently and shook her head before she sat up with a groan.

“You didn’t want him to find out, right?”

“No.”

Emma studied her sister’s tired face for a long moment. “I asked him why he doesn’t like you and he promised he would be nicer to you now that we are one family. I told him if he couldn’t behave around you, he would spend the rest of my pregnancy on the couch. It’s rather effective since he seems addicted to rubbing my belly.”

Daniel appeared to have the same addiction, only that Laura managed to avoid this affection as good as she could.

“Thank you, Emma.” Not that it actually worked. Laura was actually confused that Emma was suddenly so invested in her life. Wasn’t she usually only concerned about her own happiness?

“I can call Jenny if you would rather speak with her.” Emma’s voice sounded almost sad. “You were always much closer to one another.”

“Because we’re only two years apart,” Laura replied and was relieved when the kicking had finally stopped. The younger sister only nodded and looked down to her own baby belly.

“And because mum died at my birth.”

“No, Emma. We never blamed you for that. You were a baby and mum knew that it was a risky pregnancy.”

“Jenny never told me that.” She gave her another smile and slide deeper into the pillows.

“How could she? She was in school when you were born.” This was one of the longest conversations Laura had ever had with her sister without thinking she wasn’t paying attention to her. Maybe they should’ve talked about their mother earlier but then again, they were only going to be mothers themselves in a few months.

“If I’d known Daniel is the one who broke your heart, I wouldn’t have invited him,” she said after another long moment.

“It’s alright.”

“No, it’s not! I don’t want you to think that I don’t care about you. Because I do. You and Jenny are all the family I have and I love you. I just don’t know if you even li-” She shut herself up and took a deep breath, calming herself while rubbing her belly. “I just want you to know that I love you, even if you don’t.”

Laura groaned as she moved over and hugged her little sister tightly. “I love you too. No matter what you think, you will always be my little sister and my family.”

The sisterly moment was interrupted by a knock on the door. A knock Laura knew all too well. She let go of Emma and braced herself for Daniel. The Alpha entered the room with her plate full with food and an apologetic look on his face until he noticed that Laura wasn’t alone.

“What do you want?” she asked and turned her head away. She couldn’t have made it more obvious that she wasn’t interested in a conversation with him.

“I thought you might be hungry.”

No, he thought he could finally speak with her alone and probably tell her even more lies that would make her go weak again. She had to think of her son first. Emma looked at Laura for a hint what she wanted. Should she stay or leave them both alone to sort things out. She had her answer when Laura shot Daniel a glare and told him to leave her alone. It was obvious that he wanted to stay and Laura was certain if Emma hadn’t been in the room he wouldn’t have just put the plate down on the little desk next to the door before he eventually left.

“He looks miserable,” Emma commented after a few seconds of complete silence in the room.

“And I felt miserable when I found out that he lied to me every time he was with me. Emma, I know you don’t understand my situation, but let’s say Jason had another woman, what would you do?”

“I would scratch her eyes out.”

“And you wouldn’t be the least bit angry with him?”

“No, of course I would be, but we’ll have a baby and it’s not their fault that Jason was unfaithful to me. We both know what it’s like to grow up with one parent missing in the family pictures. I wouldn’t want that for my baby.” Emma’s gaze dropped to her bump and a smile tugged on her lips. “I would probably not want to speak with him either.”

Laura hugged her once again before she sent her baby sister downstairs again with a simple, “I’m tired.”

She fought with herself if she should accept the food Daniel had brought up and realized it was idiotic to starve herself. Laura retrieved the plate and ate in bed before she finally fell asleep after this more than tiring day.

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning Laura woke from baby screams and needed a moment to remember where she was, but then it dawned to her and she got herself ready to face her in-laws and Daniel at the breakfast table. She couldn’t even describe how little she wanted this, but since it was Christmas Eve, she could hardly spend the entire day in her room like a sulking child.

To her utter surprise Daniel wasn’t at the table when she came downstairs. Without asking Emma told her that he was in Naughton visiting relatives. Laura but the inside of her cheek when she thought about him and this Hannah, but was yea interrupted by Jason, murmuring something about Daniel’s father.

“I thought he was born in Flint,” Laura said without thinking. Why did she even care?

Jason looked at her completely neutral, something weirdly concerning. “Yes, he was, but his dad fuc-” He suddenly remembered the children at the table and continued in less crude language, “His father moved to Naughton when he found his mate. They hardly had any contact over the last ten years, but now that Hannah is in the picture he thought it was time to sort out a few things with his old man.”

Jason fought visibly not to stare at Laura’s baby bump now that he knew that it was Daniel’s. There was something similar to an apology in his eyes, but Laura didn’t really care since it wouldn’t erase the things he had put her through in school. She only nodded and began to eat, listening to Emma and Jenny talking while Harry was busy keeping his son from making a mess with his milk. Chris and Jason were uncharacteristically quiet. Obviously Emma’s threat with letting Jason camp on the couch for the next three months had worked wonders. It seemed that Jason actually, truly loved her sweet sister.

Laura spent the day with her nieces and nephew. She read them Christmas stories and drew with Allison and Jeremy, crafted little paper snowflakes and hung them with Emma’s permission all around the house. It was easier with the children and Jenny was happy that she only needed to take care of the twin girls.

In the evening Daniel returned, his cheeks pale and eyes red. Nobody but Laura seemed to notice it, but obviously the visit at his father hadn’t been a pleasant one. She thought about asking him, but Jason was quicker.

“How was it?” he asked as they all sat around the dinner table, Laura now comfortably nestles between Jenny and Allison.

“Great,” was the reply and the smile that accompanied it couldn’t have fooled anyone, but since it was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about it, nobody tried again. After dinner the whole family moved into the living room except for Daniel, who stayed behind and cleared the table. Laura couldn’t shake the feeling that she should go to him and ask what was wrong but at the same time her hurting heart sneered that he had deserved whatever happened. The heart won, like so many other times when it came to him, and so she stayed in the living room surrounded by happy families and Chris who was busying himself with his smartphone.

She felt invisible again and it got even worse when Jason unconsciously started to purr at Emma’s belly. Laura wanted to hate him for that too, but soon realised that it was natural because soon after Harry did the same, only directed to his sleeping twins in Jenny’s arms. A kick from inside her belly reminded Laura that there was no father who would purr for her son, not while he was still inside her or when he was peacefully resting in her embrace. Envy tasted bitter on her tongue and the kicking got worse. Since there was nobody paying her any attention as it was, she didn’t even say goodnight before she left the living room.

On her way to the stairs, she passed the open kitchen door and peeked inside. Daniel stood with his back to her, heavily leaning against the kitchen counters with his head hanging. Before she could go weak, she climbed the stairs and got ready for bed.  Just as she lay down and leaned over to turn off the bedside lamp, there was an almost inaudible knock on the door. With a groan she rolled out of bed and waddled over to the door.

At first she only opened it a bit until she saw who disturbed her. From this close Laura could see the dark circles under Daniel’s eyes much clearer, he hadn’t trimmed his beard this morning, making it now look unclean and shaggy.

The pleading in his eyes overpowered his whisper, “Can we please just talk, Laura? I’m sorry.”

Laura looked at him, hardly recognizing the man she had painted only a few months ago. She rested her hand on her belly as she examined him and her unruly boy finally stopped kicking. He must have sensed his father somehow. Maybe he was jealous what his cousin’s had. Without saying a single word, Laura stepped aside and let him in.


	16. Merry Christmas

Daniel stood in the middle of her little room and looked around for a spot to sit that wasn’t on her bed until Laura gestured him to take a seat on the edge of the mattress. He let out a heavy sigh and waited for her to sit as well before he lifted his eyes up to her emotionless face.

“Thanks for letting me in.”

“Not sure if that was a clever idea,” Laura replied and rested her hands on her belly. Her little chipmunk was moving again, Daniel really had an effect on his son. Apparently that ran in the family.

“I… I was visiting my father’s family today,” he began, but shut himself up only a second later. He shook his head and dropped his gaze to her belly. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He would still be with this Hannah and she and her son could be happy to get a fraction of his time. Every second weekend if he wasn’t too busy performing in the role of perfect Alpha for everyone else. Yes, Laura was angry and she knew he was an asshole, but Emma was right. They were having a child together and it wasn’t her son’s fault that his father had hurt her.

“For everything.”

“Every lie, every kiss, every look, e-”

“For hurting you,” he interrupted her and gathered the courage to look her in the eyes again. “I wasn’t thinking that it would get this serious when I asked you to paint me. I would’ve never expected you to give me anything for free, that was just stupid talk. I should’ve never said those things, with or without you listening.”

“But you did and I heard it. Daniel, what do you want? Not just from me, but in general?”

He opened his mouth but closed it again before he looked to the floor. “I want… I want to look back at my life and regret nothing I did. It’s not working very good.”

“What do you regret?”

“Everything involving you.” Laura frowned at him for that and prompted him to explain. She didn’t want to jump to conclusions again. If she got hurt, she wanted to pinpoint at the exact reason when her son asked her why she and Daddy didn’t love each other. “I never thought I would sit here and have a baby with you in a few months. I never thought you would actually let me touch you, not to speak of sleep with me.”

“You regret sleeping with me?” Laura asked to clarify.

“No, I regret that it happened now.” Daniel shook his head at himself, still looking at the floor. “My whole life I had my mother’s struggle in the back of my mind and I swore to myself that I would never let that happen to someone because of me. But it seems I just had to follow in my father’s footsteps.”

Shoulders slumped, Daniel buried his face in his hands and let out a deep groan. Laura shook her head at the sight in front of her. This powerful Alpha who owned everything a man could wish for, and with his future planned out to become just as picture perfect as it could go, got knocked down by one mistake his father had done 25 or so years ago.

“I won’t struggle like your mom. My job pays well and I have my sisters to help me if I ever need help.”

“I will be there too.” Finally he looked up again. “I’ll always be there for our son and you if you ever need a day baby-off or if your sisters have no time to babysit him. I’m his father and I plan on being a better one than my own.”

He left no doubt in that and Laura eventually asked what she had been wondering since he had come back an hour ago.

“How was your visit today?”

Daniel’s whole posture changed, where he had been down and his shoulders slumped before, he straightened his back now and made sure that his face didn’t reveal anything that went on inside of him.

“Great, why?”

“You are lying and I’m tired of it. Either you start being honest or you can leave again.” Maybe it was harsh of her but she was just sick of guessing what was going on. The pained look he gave her broke his mask in an instant, but it was her heart that clenched when he suddenly stood up and moved to the door again. Laura swallowed hard, but relaxed again, when Daniel only locked the door and let out a deep sigh.

“I don’t want anyone to walk in while I will probably break down in tears or some shit.”

Understandable. He returned to the foot of the bed and sat down, waited a few moments before he took a deep breath and began talking again, “I met William again after more than ten years of complete silence. I got a short message from him when he somehow found out that I had graduated from uni. He has three other children who didn’t know I even existed, neither did his mate Antonia, my step-mother. She looks just like my mother.”

His hands curled into tight fists.

“She seemed nice, at least until I told her who I was, then she disappeared and busied herself in the living room with her children. William dragged me outside and asked me if I wanted money.” He huffed. “Fucking money. twelve years and he asks if I want money. Fucking asshole. I was this close to beating the living shit out of him. Mom needed to save up for two years for this year’s trip to Europe because she wouldn’t take charity from me and this bastard asks if _I_ need money!”

The room was swimming with the smell of his anger as his hands clenched and unclenched as if he needed to pump against the rage rushing through his veins. Laura needed to cover her mouth and nose before she could get nauseous and throw up. After a small glance at her, Daniel got up and opened the window to let fresh air in. He stayed by the window, gazing outside into the dark night.

“I’m a nuisance to him, my own father is embarrassed by me. I am partner in one of Flint’s biggest law firms and he is embarrassed by me.”

“I am an art restaurator at one of Flint’s most important classical museums and you were embarrassed by me,” Laura murmured and received an apologetic look from him.

“You’re not my son.”

“But the mother of your child,” Laura replied and gently traced a small pattern on her belly.

“I didn’t know then.” Daniel followed the movement of her fingers, transfixed by the sight. “Did you?”

“No, I only found out a few days later.”

“Before or after we last saw each other?” Slight irritation crept back into his voice but was soon replaced with anger again.

“After, but you were talking about your father.”

“What else is there to say? He’s a dick and obviously I am just like him.”

“Obviously not,” Laura replied and stood up. She slowly walked over to him and closed the window, the room getting too cold for her liking. Daniel’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

“All of the sudden?”

“Emma said something today… We will have a baby together and it would be easier if you didn’t have an Omega waiting for you.”

Daniel closed the small distance between them but didn’t touch her just yet. “So, if Hannah wasn’t there, you would give me another chance?”

He sounded hopeful, she bit her lip. Daniel took it as an invitation to extent his hand and finally touch her. Laura sighed and gave into his touch. She was so tired of fighting against him. She wanted what her sisters had, a partner and father for her son. Laura moved his hand flat on her belly and leaned into his chest.

Daniel rubbed her belly and gasped a little when the baby moved into his palm. They moved over to the bed and lay down together. Laura snuggled into him as if the last months haven’t happened, like Hannah’s name had never entered the picture, and like Daniel had never hurt her.

“Can I stay here tonight?” he asked in a deep rumble, close to a purr, and buried his nose in Laura’s hair. She nodded and closed her eyes when he let out a real purr, rubbing her belly and pulling her closer with his free hand. Laura melted into him. The world outside this room didn’t exist anymore. It was just them.

Laura rolled up her sleeves and slid her hands underneath Daniel’s sweater, scenting him by rubbing her scent glands over his warm skin. She had never done that before, but tonight he was hers. Daniel scented her too and only a few minutes later Laura fell asleep, feeling safe and sound in the arms of him.

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning they woke from loud children screeching and little feet that ran down the stairs to see what Santa brought them in the night. Laura groaned and felt the arm around her middle tighten, a deeper groan vibrating through her from behind.

“Merry Christmas,” she mumbled and smiled when she felt his lips press gently on her neck scent gland. Her whole body smelt of him and she loved it, especially when Daniel rubbed his wrist over her belly again.

“Merry-” The ringing of his phone interrupted him rudely. Daniel sat up and searched his pockets for his smartphone. When Laura turned her head to look at him, her tired smile dropped at the hard swallow Daniel took before answering his phone.

“Merry Christmas, Hannah,” he said and closed his eyes. “Yes, I miss you too.”

What had she been thinking? Laura stood up and collected everything she needed for the shower to wash his scent off again. She hated herself for continuously falling for him and her own childish fantasy of them together. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had seen herself with him visiting Jenny and Emma, their son in her arms and Daniel by her side.

Laura unlocked the door, just as she heard him say that he couldn’t wait to see her later today. She felt nausea rise from her stomach as her pulse quickened from her anger. She hurried to the bathroom at the end of the hallway, but felt a hand on her upper arm before she could reach the saving door.

“Laura, I’m-”

“Go to hell, Daniel. I’m covered in your scent! I should have never given in last night. Why didn’t you call her when you needed someone to talk? Go and tell her some more how much you miss her because we’re through, once and for all,” she hissed and pulled her arm out of his grasp. “I’m going you wash of your reeking scent now!”

With that she disappeared in the bathroom and immediately turned on the shower. The next fifteen minutes she desperately tried to get rid of his smell on her. She didn’t want any trace of him on her when she went downstairs and smiled again for the rest of the day. Merry Christmas indeed, she thought.

Daniel drove to Hannah right after breakfast. Laura had nestled between Allison and Jenny again to make sure he couldn’t touch her, not even by accident. The rest of the day was filled with distractions. The children played with their toys and Jenny and Emma needed help in the kitchen with the tons of food Emma had planned they would ingest over the next twenty-four hours. Jenny needed to feed the babies quite often, so it was more Emma and Laura who did the cooking while Jenny sat next to them and gave orders. At least that kept her from thinking about Daniel and his current whereabouts. Again and again, Laura proved to be her biggest enemy.

In the evening Daniel returned and excused himself from dinner, going directly up to his room. Laura wondered what had happened but was still too angry to actually investigate. The next morning he came down to breakfast again and stayed very quiet while everyone else talked about the weather, food, politics, and the newest book by Sam Brooks.

Laura avoided looking at him but the knowledge that she would be stuck in a small car with him all the way back to Flint made her skin crawl. She looked at Jenny for help, but she couldn’t help and Laura rather didn’t risk any questions from Jason when she asked him to organize a driving service back to Flint. After lunch Daniel announced that he would like to drive back now, avoiding to talk with Laura directly. She went upstairs and packed her suitcase back up. Jason was kind enough to carry it down the stairs for her while Daniel was already waiting for her in the car. She said her goodbyes and thank yous before taking a deep breath.

The drive was silent, all the unsaid things weighing heavily on them, but none of them talked. They arrived in Flint way past midnight. Laura woke when Daniel slammed the trunk shut again after getting her suitcase out. The next thing was her door being opened. She took the suitcase from his hand without actually touching him. She heard the roar of the sport car’s engine  before she had even opened her apartment complex’ street door. He was gone.


	17. Godparents

Two months later

 

Laura smiled as she sorted through the heaps of baby clothing in front of her. Since Jenny had had boys and girls, she owned enough gender neutral and binary baby bodies, socks, and little hats for six baby showers. It also helped that unlike Laura, Jenny had a ton of girlfriends who buried her under presents for every pregnancy.

“I’m happy Emma will have two girls. Leaves me with all the boys’ clothes,” she told Jenny who helped her go through all the cute little outfits. With every new item of clothing old memories came back to her. Jenny had spent the last hour telling her little sister half of Jeremy’s first year.

“When you have another son, I’ll bring you the clothes back.”   


“I don’t think I want a fifth child,” Jenny laughed and rolled her eyes when the twins started crying for their mother again right on cue. “And if you were smart, you would stick with this one as your only one too.”

Jenny excused herself and went to sooth her babies. Laura snickered and shook her head. Her son would probably be an only child anyway even if she had plans for another one in the near future. With Daniel riding off into the sunset, there was no chance for happiness for them. Not even sweet Emma could turn this into a fucking fairytale.

Well, Laura thought and dropped her hand to her by now huge belly, her little prince was growing strong inside her. She didn’t need any other. Her son would grow up with so many cousins that he would never feel alone. But then again, he would probably also see that they had fathers and he “only” had a mother. Laura would have to find a way to explain to him why not everyone had a picture perfect family.

Laura folded up a tiny hoodie with bear ears and smiled, imagining her son in it with a bright smile and sparkling eyes. God, she was so excited to finally hold her baby in her arms, smell his scent, and listen to his giggles and whines all the same. Although listening to the crying coming from the twin’s nursery didn’t seem too great. But at least her son wouldn’t cry in stereo. Hurray to having only one child.

When Jenny finally returned after half an hour of calming her daughters down, she let out a deep sigh and dropped down next to Laura on the floor.

“So, did you find something you’d like?”

“Yes, thank you so much. This would’ve cost me a fortune in a store.”   


Jenny nodded, remembering the gifts she’d bought for her friends’ baby showers in the past. “The smaller the clothes, the higher the price. It’s ridiculous, but I’m glad you can use some of it.”

Laura lay her hand on the huge pile next to her and beamed at her sister. She had managed to organize a buggy and crib from a coworker for only on hundred dollar. The art studio in her apartment was almost completely converted into her son’s nursery. Laura had planned on painting the walls in a forest theme with friendly fawns and foxes surrounding the crib. She was proud because she had managed to create cartoonish characters without them turning out to be creepy af. 

The look Jenny gave her right now, numbed her current happiness.

“What’s wrong?” Was something off with the kids? Something with Harry?

“Emma called today and she wants to give birth to her daughter here in Flint.”

“Oh, that’s… great. That means we can be with her or at least have an easier time visiting.”   


“Yes.” Jenny smiled forced. She couldn’t have made it more obvious that there was something she was holding back on.

“What is it, Jenny? Doesn’t Jason want me there or what?”

“No, no, although it has something to do with Jason or rather what he told me.”

There was only one thing they could be talking about and Laura didn’t like where this was going. Laura crossed her arms over her chest and arched her eyebrow. “What about Daniel? Can’t he just stay out of my life?”

“He just asked about you and your son. He’s his as well, don’t forget that. As much as I want him to burn in hell, he still has rights.”

“I thought you of all people would leave me alone with him,” Laura hissed and glared at her sister. Really, Jenny was the first one to tell her not to fall for Daniel’s charme and now she was bringing him up again. “He made his choice and it didn’t involve me. He’d had enough time to contact me, dump his trophy wife, and-”

“Trophy wife?” Jenny interrupted her and raised her eyebrows, “Is that how you see us Omegas?”

Laura didn’t say anything. She was getting angry and didn’t want to end this day on a bad note with her sister.

“Tell Jason to tell Daniel that I won’t let him break my son’s heart. I don’t want him to know what a shitty father he is and how he treated me. Better no dad than the one he would be.”   
“Laura, calm down, you-”   


“I’m not calming down. He’s my baby and I know what’s best for him.”

Jenny started purring just to sooth her little sister, but it only made it worse. “Don’t patronize me!” Laura shouted, “It’s my decision! I don’t want him to take my baby away from me!”

“Nobody is saying that he will.”

“No, but he will show him what it would be like if he lived with him and his perfect wife in a huge house and with all the things I would never be able to give him. Can you promise me that my son will never blame me for not having the newest phone or coolest clothing when Daniel could buy it for him with a flick of his hand? He will only show him what he can’t have because I wasn’t good enough for his father to actually choose me!”

Laura suddenly felt a lump form in her throat. The last months she had told herself that Daniel had lost his right to be a father to her son when he had used her as an emotional support only to show her once again that she would never be the one and only for him. At some point she needed to cut off all strings and bury the hope that was hurting her almost as much as his actions did.

Jenny leaped over and hugged her sister despite the little quarrel just before, holding her tight and stroking her soft hand up and down her back.

Sister was sister, no matter what. And sadly but true, Laura could be as heartbroken and angry as she wanted, but Daniel was her baby’s father. Nothing would ever change that.

“If I didn’t know that those were just your hormones talking, I would be upset with you now,” Jenny purred and nuzzled her sister’s neck.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” she whispered and let go of Laura who wiped her cheeks dry with the back of her hand. “I know it’s hard, at least I can imagine, but keep in mind that your son will want to know why he doesn’t have a father to teach him about shaving or whatever Harry discusses with Jeremy during their ‘’boy sundays’’.”

Laura nodded and looked down to her huge baby bump. Nothing could ever be easy for her.

 

* * *

 

Another month later

 

Laura hurried down the hospital hallway with a smile spreading on her lips. Jason had called her twenty minutes ago and told her in short sentences that reminded her more of an excited Beagle that Emma was in labor and that they would meet at the hospital. 

Now she was searching for the room her little niece would take her first breath in. The nurse had sent her down this hallway but Laura had been to happy to actually listen to the older woman’s direction. Just as she was passing a door that looked just like all the others, Jason stepped out into the hallway with a look on his face like he had just seen a ghost.

“Am I too late?” Laura asked and needed to snap her fingers in front of his eyes to get his attention. 

“I-I am -” He couldn’t finish the sentence before a small wailing noise came from inside the room and he scrambled back inside. Laura followed him when a snickering midwife left the delivery room. In the bed opposite from the door, her little sister lay with her little pink bundle and her mate by her side. Emma’s hair was curled from the sweat that also filled the air along with the content she and Jason were radiating right now. 

As soon as Emma smelt her sister, she lifted her gaze and her smile widened. Laura closed the door behind her and slowly walked over to her sister’s bed. She glanced at the baby girl in Emma’s arms. Her little niece was all wrinkly and pink and Laura smiled even wider imagining her own son looking just like his cousin when he was born in a month. 

“Her name is Zoe,” Emma whispered and Jason suddenly began purring like a giant cat. No matter what she ever thought about him, he was definitely the prince charming when it involved his family. And Laura needed to acknowledge that his behavior had improved vastly since Christmas. Though the new problem that evolved around him was his close friendship with Daniel. 

“She is beautiful.”

“Yes, she is,” Emma replied and couldn’t stop smiling when she looked down to her baby again. “We want you to become her Godmother.”

“Really? What about your friends from Finewood or Jenny?”   


“No, we want her to grow up with a Beta close to her,” Jason suddenly answered without the usual snarl when he referred to her as a Beta.

“Why?”

“Because she won’t grow up with a Beta sibling like me and the chances that your son will be an Alpha are rather high with Daniel being-” Emma cut herself off and exchanged a long, meaningful look with Jason. 

“Is something wrong? Something with Daniel?” Panic suddenly flooded her veins as she imagined their last words to have been spoken in anger.

“No, no, no, we want him to be the Godfather of her, so you would see him at her christening and birthday parties and-”

An all too familiar knock on the door cut her off. A second later Daniel, or someone who looked an awful lot like him. But his hair was shorter, the sides showing more grey weaving through his usual jet black. His relaxed stubble was gone and his eyes seemed sunken in and his smile forced. Though all that only lasted for a second until he saw Laura. Her heart immediately skipped a beat when his scent invaded her lungs. She suddenly felt lightheaded and the need to flee from him before she could go weak. He wasn’t hers, never would be.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she quickly said to her sister and smoothed down a strand of her curled up hair before she gave her a quick kiss and left the room. The only thing that stood in her way was Daniel, who seemed too flabbergasted to move an inch.

“Would you please let me go?” Laura asked without looking into his face she hardly recognized.

“Laura, I-”

She didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to feel her son calm down because of his presence, and she definitely didn’t want to get weak knees again because of him. Laura hurried down the halway almost as fast as she had when she’d arrived only a few minutes ago.

“Please wait!” she heard behind her but willed herself to keep going. He was with someone else, in a little less than a month he was 35 and she was nothing but a mistake for him. Her son would never find out what this felt like.

“Laura stop!” His hand curled around her upper arm and forced her to a halt. Fuck.


	18. Happy Birthday

“Why?” Laura turned around and ripped her arm out of his grasp, “What do you want?”

“Talk. Ask how you are. How our son is. When is the delivery date?”

“Shouldn’t you be planning your birthday and your uncollaring with Hannah Whats-her-fancy-name?” Laura hissed and crossed her arms over her chest, “did you tell her by now?”

He swallowed thickly before his shoulders slumped and he looked to the floor. “It’s not that easy, Laura.”  
“Yes, it is. Tell her the truth. If you want to spend time with your son you’ll have to tell her anyway.”

“I know, but why jeopardize my marriage when you won’t let me be part of his life in the first place?”

“You are so fucking selfish!” she shouted and Laura was close to exploding, “Everything is only ever about you!”

“No, this is about our son!” A nurse suddenly stepped out of a delivery room and gave them a merciless glare. Laura turned on her heel and wanted to leave since she had nothing to talk to him about anyway. She was determined that as long as he wouldn’t come clean, he had no right to her son.

“Laura, wait! Please, it’s really not as easy as you think!” Daniel called after her, but Laura was deaf to his pleading tone. The blood rushed through her veins, fueled by the anger that made her heart beat like a doldrum. Lauta made it to the elevators and thankfully it just opened when she arrived there. She turned around and pushed the button for the lobby. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Daniel only a few feet away, in his hands his smartphone. Their eyes eventually met when he pulled the device up to his ear and the elevator made a soft dinging noise.

“Hannah, I have to tell you something. I-” The door closed before Laura could hear the rest of what appeared to be his confession at last. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure about being so hard on him. No, she needed to be certain. Who told her he hadn’t just faked that call?

Her feet carried her over to the row of waiting cabs all by themselves before she could even decide to stay and find out of her concerns were grounded.

 

* * *

 

Three weeks later

Laura was still waiting to hear from Daniel again. She had been right, at least that’s what she told herself whenever she thought about calling him. Laura wished Jenny wasn’t on vacation right now, but since Allison would start with her academy in summer, they used April and May for a very long last family vacation, travelling from Canada to Australia.

Her baby’s due date was two days from now and Laura only now started packing her hospital bag while Emma was on the phone, scolding her for waiting for so long.

“What if you go into labor early? Then we would have to pack the bag for you. I’m sure, I would’ve packed the wrong things and you would’ve been upset.”

Laura laughed and folded the small onesie with the bear ears attached to the adorable hood. She looked over to her phone laying on the side table next to her couch and shook her head. “You’re way too concerned about me. Also, I’m almost done. Took me only half an hour.”  
“And you are absolutely positive that you have everything you’ll need?”

“Yes, everything from your and Jenny’s lists,” she said in a calm voice and reached over to where her phone talked to her on speaker while she had been packing her duffle bag on the coffee table. She picked up the phone and turned the speaker off. “Thank you for your concern, but you really don’t have to worry about me. My doctor said that he is as healthy as he could be and that there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be a smooth delivery. Well, as smooth as a delivery can be.”

“You promise, that you’ll call me as soon as you think my nephew comes? I know, Naughton is pretty far away, but we will drive to Flint to be with you as fast as we can.”

“Yes, thank you, Emma. I will call you when the labor starts. Bye, love you.”

Emma returned the declaration of love before they hung up. Laura checked the essentials list one last time before she was certain that she had everything she would need. With a smile she strolled into the converted studio, aka her son’s nursery. It was perfect. Everything was set and all that was missing now was her little chipmunk writhing in his second hand crib, looking up to the self-made fabric fox mobile hanging from the high ceiling. She loved the light in this room and was glad to know that her boy would benefit from it. Knowing that she would finally hold him in her arms soon, made her heart pick up a beat or two. Finally, she would really be a mother.

The doorbell rang and pulled her out of her happy thoughts. Just as she wanted to press the intercom button next to the door, she remembered that it broke two weeks ago. The custodian hadn’t come around to fix it yet, so if she wanted to know who wanted to visit her, she needed to wait for them to show up in front of her apartment door. Thankfully, her apartment complex wasn’t in a bad part of town, so the danger of weirdos and junkies getting access to the house was pretty low.

Laura was still waiting for a cute baby quilt she had ordered on etsy and so there was no reason why she shouldn’t open her door with a smile when she heard steps in front of her apartment door.

“I love you, Laura. I broke off the engagement with Hannah. I’m sorry, it took me so long to sort everything out, but I want to be with you and be the father our son deserves,” Daniel blurted out before Laura could slam the door shut in his face again. The following seconds a lot went on inside Laura. At first she was angry just seeing him again, then his words slowly sank in and euphoria flooded her, until she felt warm liquid run down the inside of her thighs and she realized that her water just broke.

“Oh, no,” she breathed and stared at the puddle that built under her.

“O-okay.” Daniel brushed past her into her apartment and looked around for the prominently placed hospital bag on her coffee table. “Do you have everything you need in here?”

Laura looked at him, all her previous coolness swimming in the amniotic fluid on the floor. Daniel closed the distance between them and gently lay his hand on her shoulder. “Laura, is everything you need in the bag?”

She nodded, her mind shouting at her that she was having her baby NOW! A contraction ripped through her as if to tell her this was actually happening. Laura exchanged a panicked look with Daniel. Why was he smiling like this?

“I’ll take you to the hospital now. Do you want me to call someone for you? Jenny or Emma?”

“Emma, yes - Ah!” Laura held her belly and took a deep breath. No, she had learned to breathe into the contractions.

“Let’s go.”

Two minutes later and one call at a very surprised Emma, Laura sat in Daniel’s annoyingly small sports car. They drove to the same hospital her sisters had already delivered their babies and quickly registered before Laura was brought into one of the delivery rooms.

“What can I do?” Daniel asked as he shrugged off his coat while the nurse helped Laura into a pink hospital gown behind a screen.

“What did Emma say? When will she be here?”

“Well, they’ll need a few hours to get here from Naughton,” he replied and rolled up the sleeves of his dark blue dress shirt.

The nurse helped Laura onto the delivery bed and lifted her feet up into the leg rests.

“I will check your cervix and then call your doctor down. What’s their name?”

“Dr. Rosenbloom,” she replied and whined when another contraction hit her out of nowhere. Daniel was instantly triggered by the helpless sound and stood by Laura’s side without even thinking. He carefully stroked her hair back and pulled a chair from the corner of the room. Laura watched him from the corner of her eyes as she waited for the nurse to tell her what was going on.

“Only an inch this far. I will call Dr. Rosenbloom in when you cervix reaches two or did you agree on a c-section with her?”

“No, I wanted a natural birth,” Laura replied and suddenly thought this might have been a pretty stupid idea.

“Alright, I will be back in a few minutes to attach the fetal monitor,” the nurse announced and left the room and them alone. Laura turned her head around to stare at Daniel, who seemed way too calm for someone who would become a father in less than a day. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long.

“What?” he asked and returned Laura’s staring.

“Why are you here?”

“Because I want to be there when he is born.”

“But why aren’t you with Hannah?”

“I told you, I broke off the engagement with her.” He continued stroking her hair to soothe her. “I drove to her after we spoke the last time and told her everything about you. She… she was hurt, naturally, and she demanded I decide between you and her.”

Laura hadn’t expected anything else from a teenage princess.

“When I told her, I wouldn’t desert you, she yelled that she was too good to be second best, threw me out and called for her father to fire me.”

“You’ve got fired?” As much as Laura was amazed that he had actually picked her over his life goal, an Omega mate, losing his work seemed like a huge price to pay. “I don’t understand. What does he have to do with your law firm? I thought, you were partner.”

Daniel’s eyes turned a little sad as he explained. “The business fusion with the law firm of Hannah’s father only happened under the condition that I would marry her. Now that I broke off with her, _Frost, Frost and Blake_ has to pay a fine and Jason’s dad took away my partnership along with half of the fine from my salary.”

“But, you’re still employed?” she asked concerned and rubbed her contracting belly. The pain wasn’t too bad, but she waited for the fetal monitor before she even thought about relaxing. As if she had heard Laura’s thoughts, the nurse returned with the monitor and connected her to it. The machine, wired to the sensors that now covered her belly, began humming softly before the first paper appeared and found the nurse’s approval.

“Looks perfectly fine. I called Dr. Rosenbloom. She said she will be here in half an hour and she assured me that there is no reason why anything shouldn’t go according to the textbook. I’ll check on you again in fifteen minutes.”

And she was gone again.

“Yes, I still work for Jason and his dad, although the atmosphere is getting more than icy.”

Laura lifted her hand to cradle Daniel’s stubbled cheek. Maybe she should’ve listened to him and his reasons why he couldn’t just dump Hannah much earlier. She felt guilty all of the sudden.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

Daniel huffed. “Well, you wouldn’t listen, but who can blame you after what I did.”

He placed his hand over hers on his cheek and turned his head to kiss her palm gently. Suddenly a hard contraction shot through her and a hiss escaped Laura. Daniel immediately began purring to help with the pain and stood up. He placed a warm hand on her belly, gently rubbing the taunt skin and dropped his purring an octave until it sounded more like the vibration of a phone than a human sound.

“I’m happy, you didn’t send me away yet,” he murmured between his calming purrs.

“Would you have left, if I did?”

“Maybe the room, but definitely not the hallway.” The pain was gone again, but the pressure as the baby slowly moved further down became more and more apparent. “I definitely want to hear his first cry.”

“God, I think I need to puke,” she sighed and covered her mouth. Laura had nothing in her stomach since she had wanted to make lunch after packing her hospital bag, but she was still close to vomiting. Daniel immediately hurried to the door and called for the nurse. She offered a small vomit bowl but as Laura had already expected nothing came out.

“Maybe walking around in the room can help with the nausea. Do you think, you can walk a bit? I’m sure your partner will keep a close eye on you.”

Laura nodded and let the nurse disconnect her from the fetal monitor before Daniel helped her up from the bed again. As soon as Laura stood, the pressure on her stomach was gone and she could take a few deep breaths to make sure. As soon as they were alone again, Daniel began purring once more while Laura walked from one side of the bed to the other. It seemed gravity was helping their son as well. The contractions came quicker now and also with an increasing pain level, until she cried out at one particular bad one.

Daniel was with her within a heartbeat. He steadied her with his hands on her sides and gently urged her to hold onto his shoulders and let her head hang between the two of them. This position actually helped with the back pain that turned into a bigger problem than just a few minutes before.

“How do you know all this?” Laura asked and breathed into the contraction.

“All this?”

“Everything you need to do right now?”

Daniel snickered and rubbed his hands up and down her sides, occasionally letting his fingers trace the curve of her spine just right. “I asked Jason for every single detail of Zoe’s birth. Luckily, he still speaks with me, although I probably know more than I ever wanted about Emma and her uterus.”

Laura laughed softly at that. “Welcome to my world and I have two sisters who talked about their birthing experiences with me.”

“Poor darling,” Daniel purred and massaged the exact spot from where her back pain originated.

“I’m so glad, you’re here,” Laura whispered and closed her eyes as another contraction built up in her lower belly. She felt his lips press gently against the crown of her head. “I think, I need to sit down again.”

Daniel helped her back into the bed just in time for a grey-haired woman with a round face and a wide smile to come in. Dr. Rosenbloom greeted them and sat down by the foot of the delivery bed to check how much Laura’s cervix had widened enough.

“Only four centimeters.”

“But it needs to be ten, right?” Daniel asked, showing that he had indeed done his homework on childbirth. Laura would’ve rather heard something close to eight centimeters before Dr. Rosenbloom left them again.

Over the following three hours, Laura tried to find a comfortable position to rest every fifteen minutes. The doctor and nurse checked on her every thirty minutes while Daniel never left Laura’s side. He talked with her when she needed distraction, held her when she whimpered through a heavy contractions, and purred when she finally reached the ten centimeters.

Dr. Rosenbloom told her to breathe and push, push and breathe, ignore the pain, and only imagine holding her son in a couple of minutes. Daniel held her hand and told her how strong she was when Laura simply wanted to give up again.

One, two, three more pushes and the pain was finally over. A loud cry and a completely new scent filled the room, and with that Laura immediately forgot the pain and curses she had felt and uttered mere seconds ago. Dr. Rosenbloom lay her baby, still covered in white goo and blood, and all wrinkly and purple skinned, on her chest. It didn’t matter that he looked like a little alien. Not a singly bit. Laura looked at the baby in her arms and smiled, happy tears rolling down her sweaty face. The room around her vanished. The only thing she saw, the only thing that mattered was the face of her son, the boy she had felt growing inside her, kick and writhe in her womb over the last nine months. This was pure happiness.

Daniel’s deep purr pulled her back into reality. He sat down on his chair again and looked at their son, tears rimming his eyes.

“You couldn’t have made me a better birthday present, Laura. I love you so much.”

She smiled at her two birthday boys and stroked her son’s chubby cheek gently with the pad of her finger.

“Happy birthday, Lucas” she whispered, bliss and content filling her chest like she had never felt before.


	19. The whole family

An hour after Lucas’ birth Emma finally arrived and was overjoyed to smell the newest addition to the family. She called him cute, adorable, and attested that he looked just like his father. Jason and Daniel excused themselves in front of the door to talk alone. 

Emma whispered something about difficult times for their friendship, but Laura couldn’t bring herself to pay her much attention with her baby in her arms and tiredness creeping into her limbs.

“Emma, you know I am really grateful that you are here, but I’m really tired,” she said shortly before Daniel returned and sat down in the chair next to Laura’s hospital bed. She had moved into a regular hospital room with a wider bed while the nurse had taken Lucas to the dynamic test (of course he was an Alpha, just like his daddy) and the first health checks to make sure his lungs were working properly and such.

“You can stay in my apartment tonight,” Laura suggested and managed a small smile.

“Do you want me to leave too?” Daniel asked in a low voice and gazed at his son with a frown.

“No, not if you want to stay.”

His frown disappeared and was instantly replaced with a smile, one that seemed just as tired as Laura felt. Emma kissed her sister on the forehead before she got the apartment keys out of Laura’s hospital bag, and left the little family of three alone.

“Did you mean it?” she asked after a few seconds of silence between them. 

Daniel looked to the side. He suddenly seemed nervous, like a schoolboy at his first dance. “Yes I did, if you are referring to my declaration of love for you and our son. I love you. And I love him. He's the best that ever happened to me and I couldn't be happier that you decided to allow me to be part of his life. I never want to be like my father. He hurt me and my mother so much. I know, I hurt you too, but I want to make things right. I never want my son to believe that I don't love him.”

Laura was too tired to argue and deep down she believed him. She had been through the entire pregnancy without a helping hand, had managed it all by herself, but that didn't mean that she wanted this life alone, as single mother. Looking into her son's face, she knew that he was as much part of Daniel as he was of herself. Lucas would always connect them, would always be there to hold them together by an invisible band. Things would never be the same between them. But if she was honest with herself, she wouldn't want it any other way. Laura had always loved him or at least the part where she actually knew what love was. He'd always been there in the school yard, watching her from afar when she’d tried to be invisible. But he had seen her.

Usually Betas never got Alphas to notice them. Alphas only ever dreamed about having an Omega by their side to show off and make everyone else jealous, envious of their possession. Having one of the “rare ones” was a boost for their confidence. It showed the world that they were mighty, rich, powerful. 

“I think, I need to sleep. It's been a very long day.”

“Can I stay? The whole night? I just want to make sure that he's ok.” Daniel looked at his son with loving eyes. Tears suddenly started to choke Laura. All the love she saw in his expression only made it more apparent that he was actually interested in his son and she started to believe that she could have had all of this much earlier if she had just talked to him and told him about her pregnancy right from the beginning. Maybe he would have still lost his job or his partner status, and maybe his career would’ve still been put on the back burner, but at least she would have had him by her side during her pregnancy, felt his hands on her growing belly in the morning, kissed him in the night when he came home from work, argued with him about her son's name, their son's name. 

She put her Lucas into the hospital crib and slid deeper into the pillows, her arms wrapping around her still swollen belly. She studied Daniel, who wouldn't let him out of his sight. He had been honest about making sure that he was ok. He really loved him. 

All of the sudden, she couldn't shake off the feeling that Daniel was just here because she  had gotten pregnant with his child. If it weren't for Lucas, he would probably be with Hannah 500 miles away from here, most likely laughing and cuddling together on some uncomfortable designer couch or something. His life would’ve been perfect if not for her and her little sunshine. Laura couldn't hold back the tears now as they rolled down her cheek. Although she quickly wipe them away, Daniel saw them and was immediately concerned about her.

“Are you ok?” he asked and reached for one of her hands. They were ice cold. He moved to sit on the edge of her bed, looking down at her with so much worry in his eyes that she was beginning to feel sorry for crying, for feeling bad. “Please tell me, what's wrong Laura. Can I do something to make you feel better? Do you want me to call your doctor again?”

“No”, Laura replied with a heavy voice and lied, “I'm just really tired.”

It was obvious that he didn't believe her but he kept silent. Daniel stroked his thumb over the back of her hand in a soothing motion until the desire to cry had died down again. She thanked him in a low voice.

“Now please tell me what is upsetting you  so much”, he tried again and this time Laura gave  in. She told him about her fears and when she was done, she anxiously waited for him to wipe away her concerns with one of his dashing smiles. Daniel looked at her for a long moment, then to Lucas, and eventually back to her again. A smile crept over his face.

“Laura I loved you since I saw you dancing down the hallway.”

She was confused. When she danced down any hallway? And, more importantly, when had he seen her do that?

Daniel noticed her furrowed brows and laughed a little louder, but still mindful as to not wake their sleeping son. It seemed being born was just as exhausting as giving birth.

“In high school. I was in the school library, studying for my scholarship. There was a small window in the door. I saw your pigtails walking past and wanted to know what you were doing in school so late in the afternoon. I had only seen you on the schoolyard, always by yourself and every time I had thought that you were too pretty to be so alone. But with Jason and Chris, I never had the courage to approach you. But there after school with only you and I left with our extra curriculum studies, I finally had time to look at you, even though you didn't notice me. Much like you did, or rather didn't, at Emma's wedding.” He laughed. “I snuck out of the library to watch you a little. You wore your paint covered overall and held your walkman in your hand, and it was obvious that you were jamming to the music only meant for you. You never wanted to bother anyone. I always admired that. Especially because I was always surrounded by people who wanted to take the spotlight at any given moment. The next day I asked you out for prom, but then Jason and Chris found out and gave me shit about it. I know, I should have stood my ground and defended my decision…  I'm so sorry, I had been such a coward back then.” 

Laura had listened to him silently, looking at Lucas before moving over to the edge of the bed and offering Daniel to lay down beside her. He didn’t need any more encouragement. Slipping off his shoes, he gave her a thankful nod and cuddled up beside Laura. With a content sigh, she snuggled into his chest and inhaled his scent deeply. This day had changed everything. She was a mother now and Daniel was with her, saying he wanted to be with her… but for how long?

“I can’t be with you as if nothing happened,” she told him without lifting her head off his chest. 

“I know, I didn’t expect that anyway. Maybe in a few months we can-”

“Go on a proper date and take things slower than we did before.”

His arms wrapped around her as he buried his nose in her hair, sweat and her scent lingering in it. Daniel took a deep breath and rumbled lowly, “I take whatever you give me.”

 

* * *

 

Eight months later

Snow covered the pine trees outside Emma’s house while the fireplace in the living room crackled behind the protective screen so that none of the little Christmas guests, who just started walking or were still comfortable crawling, could injure themselves.

Laura sat on the loveseat and watched Lucas play with a little plush giraffe his cousin Zoe had handed him only a few minutes earlier. She was meanwhile busy examining Lucas’ fluffy dog from all angles. Jenny’s twins sat next to their younger cousins and looked at a picture book Laura had given them as a little pre-Christmas gift shortly after they had arrived a couple hours ago.

Harry arguing with Chris about politics while everyone else was content watching the new generation bond over their toys. The only thing missing to complete the perfect Christmas card scene was a real dog patiently allowing Jeremy to squeeze his floppy ears. Maybe next year, Laura thought with a smile and let her eyes scan the room. Nobody, except for Chris was alone. Emma had her Jason (and judging by the way how he held his hand over her belly, they were probably expecting their next little family addition), Jenny sat next to Harry but solved a puzzle with Jeremy who had already asked twice if Allison would come too which broke everyone’s heart, and Laura herself… well.

With a loud sigh Daniel slumped down on the place next to Laura and wrapped his arm around her waist. She was still a little rounder than before her pregnancy, but he assured her everytime she looked down at herself with a frown that he wouldn’t want her any other way. Laura couldn’t count the kisses he had already pressed on her stretchmarks while murmuring lust filled declarations of love just before he sent her to heaven with his hands and mouth on her burning skin. 

They had stopped “dating” traditionally when Laura had muttered her first concerns about leaving Lucas with the babysitter. It had nothing to do with the babysitter, only with Laura’s incredible yearning to be around her son as often and as many times as she could while working again. After she had told Daniel, that she would rather they met at her apartment again, the way back into each other’s arms hadn’t been too far.

When they had first landed in bed again, they had just looked at each other before bursting out into laughter. Things hadn’t always been easy, but after every little or not so little argument, they’d sat down and talked. Laura loved seeing Daniel play with Lucas, or rather, she loved everything Daniel did that took some work off her shoulders and granted her a few minutes of alone time or a quick nap.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Daniel whispered and kissed Laura just below her ear.

“I was just thinking about the last couple of months.”

“I’m doing that too, a lot actually. I’m still waiting for it.”

Laura turned her head around to look at him with a quirked eyebrow.

“Waiting for what?”

“For one of our arguments to cause it all to collapse. Just one word about how much I hurt you and that I haven’t changed and all,” he replied with his voice getting quieter and heavier with every word. Laura shook her head almost violently and reached up with one hand to cradle his cheek.

“You have changed. Yes, you hurt me, but you are making up for it every single day. I want to be happy with you.”

Daniel smiled and kissed her tenderly. “You and Lucas are the best that ever happened to me.”

She never got tired of hearing that. A little over one and a half years ago she would’ve never thought this possible. She was happy and content with her life. When she came home from work, she wasn’t alone anymore. Daniel had chosen her, no Omega or beauty queen, but her and their little family.

  
  


The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it folks!
> 
> With this ends the story of Laura and Daniel. But don't be sad, I will definitely not be my last. I plan on writing another book this year and you'll hopefully be back to take the journey with me.
> 
> I loved every comment I got, every question I was asked, and every curse I read when it came to Daniel's stupidity. You are awesome readers and I loved communicating with you on a weekly basis.
> 
> I hope to see you back when I start with my next book. Thank you and I love you all.


End file.
